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THE HEIRESS OF WYVERN COURT

by

E. SEARCHFIELD

Author of "Claimed at Last"

Illustrated







[Illustration: "'GOOD MORNING, MADAME GICHE'" (p. 65).]



Cassell and Company, Limited
London, Paris, New York & Melbourne
1900

All Rights Reserved




CONTENTS.

                                                                      PAGE
  CHAPTER I.--In the Railway Carriage--New Friends                       9

    "    II.--Willett's Farm--Tea in the Dining-room                    21

    "   III.--Dr. Willett--The Nutting Expedition--The Fire             35

    "    IV.--Oscar's Burnt Arm--Black Hole                             47

    "     V.--Inna at the Owl's Nest--More Wrong Steps                  61

    "    VI.--Inna's Firstfruits--On the Tor                            73

    "   VII.--Oscar Lost--A Fruitless Search                            86

    "  VIII.--At the Owl's Nest--The Song--The Surprise                 96

    "    IX.--Oscar's Return--The Mystery Cleared--On the Tor Again    109

    "     X.--The Expedition to Swallow's Cliff--Caught by the Tide    119

    "    XI.--The Rescue--Cloudy Days--Good News at Last               133

    "   XII.--New Thoughts and Ways--The Heiress of Wyvern Court       146




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

  "'Good morning, Madame Giche'"                              Frontispiece

  "A donkey and cart came driving up"                      To face page 40

  "It snapped, and he was gone"                                  "     130

  "Dick shook her by the hand"                                   "     144




THE HEIRESS OF WYVERN COURT.




CHAPTER I.

IN THE RAILWAY CARRIAGE--NEW FRIENDS.


"Well, little friend, and where do you hail from?"

The speaker was a merry-faced, brown-eyed boy of eleven, with curly
brown hair--just the school-boy all over.

He had leaped into a railway carriage with cricket-bat, fishing-rod, and
a knowing-looking little hamper, which he deposited on the seat beside
him; then away went the snorting steam horse, train, people, and all,
and out came this abrupt question. "Little friend" was a mite of a girl
of nine, dressed in a homely blue serge frock and jacket, with blue
velvet hat to match: a shy little midge of a grey-eyed maiden, with
sunny brown curls twining about her forehead and rippling down upon her
shoulders, nestling in one corner of the carriage--the sole occupant
thereof until this merry questioner came to keep her company.

"I don't quite know what you mean," was the little girl's reply--a
sweet, refined way of speaking had she, and her eyes sparkled with shy
merriment, although there was a startled look in them too.

"Well, where do you come from, my dear mademoiselle?" and now the merry
speaker made a courtly bow.

"From London--but I'm not French, you know," was the retort, with the
demurest of demure smiles.

"No--just so; and where are you going?" One could but answer him, his
questions came with such winning grace of manner.

"To Cherton--to uncle--to Mr. Jonathan Willett's."

"Cherton! why, that's not far from my happy destination. I get out only
one station before you."

"Little friend" smiled her demure little smile again, as if she was glad
to hear it.

"So you're going to Mr. Willett's--Dr. Willett he's generally called,
being a physician," continued the boy, after glancing from the window a
second or two, as if to note how fast the landscape was rushing past the
train, or the train past the landscape.

"Yes; do you know him?" inquired the silvery tongue of the other.

"Oh yes; I know him!"--a short assent, comically spoken.

"I don't," sighed the little girl, as if the thought oppressed her.

"Then you'd like to know what he's like," spoke the boy, using the word
like twice for want of another.

"Yes--only--only would it be nice to talk about a person--one's uncle,
one doesn't know, be----" she did not like to say behind his back, but
the faltering little tongue stuck fast, and the small sensitive face of
the child looked a little confused.

"Ah! behind his back," spoke the boy readily. "Well, perhaps not; but
you'll know him soon enough, I'm quite sure, and all about Peggy, too.
Peggy is the best of the couple," he added.

"Do you mean Mrs. Grant, my uncle's housekeeper?"

"Yes, that very lady--only, you see, I like to call her Peggy."

"Yes," returned the child, supposing she ought to say something.

"'Tis a farm, you know--jolly old place. Do you know that?"

"Yes--that is, I know 'tis a farm; mamma told me that. But I didn't know
'twas jolly; mamma said 'twas very pretty, and home-like, and nice."

"Ah, yes! just a lady's view of the place," nodded the boy approvingly.
"The farm is the best part of it all, and so you'll say when----"

"Perhaps we'll not talk about it," broke in "little friend" timidly.

"Well, you are a precise little lady not to talk about a farm, your
uncle's farm, behind its back," laughed the boy.

"It's mamma's uncle," corrected the little maiden.

"Ah, yes! and your great uncle. Well, I thought he was an old fogey to
be your uncle--I beg your pardon--old _gentleman_ I mean." He laughed
and made a low bow, but his cheeks took a rosier tint at that real slip
of his tongue.

"Well, suppose we talk about ourselves; that wouldn't be behind our own
backs, would it?"

"Oh no!" came with a pretty jingle of laughter.

"Do you know my name? Dick."

"I thought so," replied the little girl.

"You did!--why?"

"You look like a Dick."

"Well, that's just like a girl's bosh--but still, you're right: I am
Dick Gregory, son of George Gregory, surgeon, living at Lakely, next
station to Cherton, where you get out, you know."

The girl nodded.

"Now, mademoiselle, what may your name be?" he asked, as the train
carried them into the station with a whiz.

"Inna Weston."

"Inna: is that short for anything?"

"Yes--for Peninnah: papa's mother's name is Peninnah; and so, and
so----"

"And so your father chose to let you play grandmother to yourself in the
matter of names?"

"Yes," a little ripple of a word full of laughter--her companion was so
funny.

"Now guess what's in this hamper?" was Dick's next proposition; "that's
safe ground, you know, to guess over a hamper when the owner bids you,"
he added, by way of encouragement.

"A kitten." The train was carrying them on again, without any intruder
to cut off the thread of their talk, except the guard, who put his head
in at the window, and beamed a smile on Inna, as her caretaker; then he
shut the door, and locked them in, and here was the train tearing on
again.

"Well, now, you are a good guesser for a girl," said Dick.

"I didn't guess: I knew it. I heard her mew," smiled Inna.

"Ah! Miss Inna is a little pitcher, pussy; she has sharp ears," said
pussy's master, peering and speaking through the hamper.

"Me--e--e--w!" came like a prolonged protest against all the
hurry-scurry and noise, so confusing to a kitten shut up in a hamper,
not knowing why nor whither she was travelling.

"Now, who am I taking her to? guess that; and if you guess right, I
should say you're a seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, and of gipsy
origin"--so the merry boy challenged her.

"To your sister."

"Right!" laughed Dick.

"But I'm not a seventh daughter--I'm only daughter to mamma, and so was
mamma before me; and I'm not a gipsy." Inna's face was brimming over
with shy merriment.

"Well, you ought to be, for you're a clever guesser of dark secrets,"
returned the boy. "Yes: I'm taking pussy home to my sister. Her name
is--now, what is her name?"

Inna shook her head.

"Something pretty I should say, but I don't know what."

"Oh! you're not much of a witch after all," said Dick. "No, it isn't
anything pretty--it's Jane."

Inna smiled, and looked wise.

"Well, what is it, Miss Inna? Out with it!" cried Dick, watching her
changeful little face.

"Mamma says, when one has an ugly name one must try to live a life to
make it beautiful."

"Hum! Well, that isn't bad. And when one has a beautiful name--like
Dick, for instance," said he waggishly, "what then?"

"Then the name should help the life, and the life the name--so mamma
said when I asked her."

"Well, your mother must be good," said Dick to this.

"Yes, she is." Wistful lights were stealing into Inna's eyes, and Dick
had a suspicion that there were tears in them.

"I'm not blest with one," spoke he, carelessly to all seeming.

"With no mother?" inquired his companion gently.

"I'm sort of foster-child to Meggy, our cook and housekeeper--ours is
Meggy, you know, and yours is Peggy, at Willett's Farm."

"Yes," smiled Inna, "yes." She had tided over that tenderness of spirit
caused by speaking of her mother.

The train was steaming into a station again, but no passenger intruded;
only the guard peeped in, as caretaker, to see if she was safe, as Dick
remarked, when they were moving on again.

"Has he got you under his wing?" asked he.

"The guard has me under his care; ma--mamma asked him to see me safe."
The wistfulness was coming into her eyes again.

"So she has a mother; I thought perhaps she hadn't," thought Dick. Aloud
he said bluffly, "'Tis well to be a girl, to have all made smooth for
one. Now here am I, come all the way from Wenley, turned out of school
because of the measles, and never a creature as much as to say, 'Have
you got a ticket, or money to buy one?'"

"Oh, but they'd not let you come without a ticket," smiled Inna.

"I mean our chums at school, and father at home. Of course my father
knew I was all right about money, because he'd just sent my quarter's
allowance."

"And have they got the measles at your school?"

"Yes: are you afraid of me? Infection, you know."

"Afraid? oh no!"

"Well, if you caught it you'd be all right, your uncle being a doctor. A
doctor at a farm--queer, isn't it, now?" So Dick went skimming from
subject to subject, very like a swallow skimming over the surface of
water after flies and gnats.

"Yes," Inna could but confess it was--very guardedly, though, lest they
might verge upon gossip again.

"But Peggy's the farmer; your uncle has enough to do to look after his
patients. He's a clever fo--man--so clever that some say he's got
medicine on the brain."

Inna's lips were sealed conscientiously; but out of the brief silence
that followed she put the safe question--

"What colour's your kitten?"

"White. Wouldn't you like to take a peep at her?" and good-natured Dick
held the hamper so that she might catch a glimpse of the small
four-legged traveller.

"She's a beauty!"--such was Inna's opinion of her.

"And, according to you, she ought to have a beautiful name. But what of
my sister Jane? I call her Jenny, and Jin; and that reminds me of the
other gin with a g, you know; and that carries me on to trap, and
trapper. I sometimes call her Trapper. That sounds quite romantic, and
carries one away into North American Indian story life. Have you ever
read any North American Indian stories--about Indians, and scalps, and
all that?"

"No," was the decisive, though smiling, reply.

Ah! they were steaming into a station again.

"Lakely at last, and this is my station!" cried Dick, gathering his
belongings together, so as to be ready to leap out when the train
stopped, while a porter went shouting up and down the platform, "Lakely!
Lakely!"

"Well, good-bye, little friend; mind, Cherton comes next, then 'twill be
your turn to turn out." He wrung her hand, and was out on the platform
in a twinkle, loaded like a bee, happy as a boy.

"I say, Miss Inna, I should like you to come over to our place to see
Jenny, or Trapper. I shall ask the doctor to give you a lift over in his
gig," he put his head back into the carriage to say.

Now he was scudding away down the platform, and claiming a trunk and
portmanteau from a medley of luggage, had it set aside by the porter,
who seemed to know him; this done, he darted back again, smiled in at
the carriage window, where that sweet girlish face still watched him,
and then vanished.




CHAPTER II.

WILLETT'S FARM--TEA IN THE DINING-ROOM.


"Cherton! Cherton! Cherton!"

Inna sprang from the corner of her lonely carriage, and stepped out upon
the platform, helped by the kindly guard.

"Now, my dear, what's to be done? There's nobody here waiting for you,
as I see," said the man, looking up and down the small platform, where
she seemed to be the only arrival--she and her neat little trunk, which
a porter brought and set down at her feet.

"No, they don't know I'm coming," returned the child, with a sober shake
of her head.

"Where for, miss?" inquired the porter, as the guard looked at him.

"My--Mr. Willett's, at Willett's Farm," said Inna, in a sort of startled
importance at having to speak for herself.

"Do you know the way?" asked the man.

"No; but I should if you told me--I mean----"

"Yes, miss; I know what you mean," replied the porter, noting her
childish confusion. "I'll see to her, and send her safely," he promised
the busy guard, and took her small gloved hand in his, and led her away
out into the open road by the station, stretching away among fields, all
bathed in crimson and golden sunshine.

"Now, miss," said he, pointing with his finger, "you go along this road
and turn to your right, and along a lane, turn to your right, and along
another; don't turn to your left at all; then turn to your right again,
and there you are at Willett's Farm. Do you understand?" he asked
kindly, bending down to something like her height, so as to get her view
of the way.

"Yes, thank you; I must keep to the right all the way, and turn three
times--but I don't think I quite know what a farm is like," confessed
she bravely.

"Oh, miss, that's easy; there isn't another house before you reach the
farm--the village is above Willett's Farm."

"Thank you; then I'll think I'll go now."

"You'll not lose yourself? I'd go with you, but I expect another train
in almost directly, and there isn't a soul about here that I could send.
And about your box, miss: will you send for it?"

"Yes, I'll send for it; and--and I don't think I shall lose myself."

"Then good evening, miss." The porter touched his hat, and she bade him
"good evening" in return; then the child went wandering down the road
from the station--a blue dot in the evening sunshine.

Well, she took her three turnings to the right, and they brought her to
the farm, lying not far up the last lane; the farm-buildings--barn,
stable, and a whole clump of outbuildings--lying back from the road a
little, and all lit up by the last rays of sunset. The house looked out
upon the lane, where the shadows were gathering fast, under the
many-tinted elm trees overshadowing it. Three spotlessly white steps led
up to the front door, a strip of green turf lying each side, enclosed by
green iron railings, and shut in by a little green gate. A quaint old
house it was, with many crooks, corners, and gables, and small lattice
diamond-paned windows, through one of which gleamed the ruddy glow of a
fire. Ah! the air was crisp, the sun well-nigh gone, the evening
creeping on. Inna sighed, and, tripping through the little green gate,
mounted the three white steps, and, by dint of straining, reached up,
and knocked with the knocker almost as loudly as a timid mouse. But it
brought an answer, in the shape of a middle-aged woman, in a brown stuff
gown, white apron and cap, dainty frillings of lace encircling her face.
A sober face it was, yet kindly, peering down in astonishment at our
small heroine, standing silent there among the deepening shadows in the
crisp chilly air.

"Well, dearie, what is it?" she questioned, as the child opened her lips
to speak, and said nothing.

"I'm Inna: please may I come in and tell you all about it?" asked the
silvery tongue then.

"Yes, of course--that is, if you have anything to tell;" and with this
the woman made way for the little girl to pass her, and shut the door.

"This way," she said; and that was to the kitchen.

Such a clean, cheery, comfortable place, with its wood fire filling it
with ruddy glow and warmth, which was like a silent welcome.

"Now, who's ill and wants a doctor? Sick folks' messengers shouldn't
lag," said the woman, scanning her visitor as they both stood in the
firelight glow.

"Oh, nobody is ill; and I only--I mean--I don't know where to begin,"
was the bewildering answer.

"Well, of course you know what brought you," suggested the other.

"Oh, the train brought me; and I've come to stay here."

"You have?" asked the woman.

"Yes; because Uncle Jonathan gave mamma a home once, when she was a
little girl; and she said he would me, if she sent me."

"And who are you? and who's your mamma?"

"I'm Inna; and mamma is Uncle Jonathan's niece."

"You aren't Miss Mercy's daughter?" said the woman.

"Yes, I'm Miss Mercy's daughter; and now, please, may I sit down?"
asked the little tired voice.

"Yes, poor little unwelcome lamb; I'll not be the one to deny that to
Miss Mercy's daughter. Come here;" and she set her own cushioned
rocking-chair forward on the hearth. "But where is Miss Mercy? and why
did she send you here?"

"Mamma is gone abroad with papa. Some people are afraid he's dying;
and"--Inna's heart was full--"I've a letter in my pocket for Uncle
Jonathan, to tell him all about it."

"Well, well, this will be news for master--unwelcome news, I'm
thinking," muttered the woman as to herself, but speaking aloud.

"Do you mean I shan't be welcome?" asked a strained little voice from
the rocking-chair.

"Well, dearie, welcome or not, here you are, and here you must stay for
to-night, at any rate. You see, Dr. Willett has one child on his hands
already, and he's a handful. I doubt if he'll want another. But then, we
must all have what we don't want sometimes--eh, miss?"

To this Inna sighed a troubled little "Yes."

Then Mrs. Grant--for she it was--bethought her to help her off with her
jacket and hat, and inquired had she any belongings at the station? Yes,
she had a trunk there; and an unknown Will--at least, unknown to
Inna--was despatched for it.

"But maybe you'd like some tea?" suggested the housekeeper.

"Yes, I should, please," the little lady assured her, folding her jacket
neatly, as she had been taught.

"Well, they're just having tea in the dining-room. Come along."

No use for Inna to shrink or shiver, for Mrs. Grant was leading the way
to those unknown tea-drinkers of whom she was to form one; the
fire-light from the kitchen showing them the way along a passage. Then a
door was opened, and the small shiverer thrust in, not unkindly, with
the words--

"A little lady come for a bit and a sup with you, sir."

Then the door closed, and she was in another fire-lit room. A lamp, too,
burnt on a table in front of a wood fire, on which was laid a quaint
old-fashioned tea equipage, with a hissing urn, and all complete. On
the hearth knelt a lad, making toast; and by his side, leaning against
the mantelpiece, was a tall man--red-haired, with streaks of grey in
that of both head and closely-clipped beard. He had keen grey eyes,
which seemed to scan Inna through; a small mouse-like figure by the
door, afraid to advance.

"Oscar, where are your manners?" asked the gentleman, "to treat a lady
in this way, when she's thrust upon you?"

Thrust: here was another word which seemed to say she was not welcome.

"I beg your pardon," lisped the child, thinking she ought to speak.

"No, no; a lady is very like a king--she never does wrong or needs
pardon; 'tis this great lout of a boy here that is the aggressor."

Whereupon the somewhat awkward, shy lad on the hearth laid down knife
and toasting-fork, and came towards her.

"Well, whoever you are, will you please sit here?" said he, setting her
a chair by the table, and taking another himself behind the urn.

"With a lady in the room, you'll never do that," said the gentleman,
spying comically at him from where he still stood on the hearth, as the
boy began to brew the tea.

"Oh no, thank you; I couldn't manage the urn," said Inna.

"I thought not," growled Oscar, a big, handsome, fair-haired boy of
eleven, with grey-blue eyes. "And now, here I am without a cup for you."

Inna had not taken the seat he offered her by the table, but had glided
round to the gentleman on the hearth. Oscar made a bolt from the room to
fetch a cup and saucer.

"Won't you say you will like to have me here, Uncle--Uncle Jonathan?"
she asked hesitatingly. Such a mite she was, glancing up at the tall
red-haired gentleman turning grey, such blushes coming and going in her
cheeks.

"My dear little lady, I think you're just the one element wanting in our
male community: a little girl in our midst will save us from settling
down into the savages we're fast becoming," replied the gentleman,
glancing down in an amused way at her from his superior height.

"Well, isn't that welcome enough?" he asked, still with that comical
smile, as Inna gave a puzzled glance at him, as if not quite
comprehending his high talk, and fumbling in her dress pocket.

"I have a letter that will tell you all about me--why I've come, you
know," said she.

"Ah yes, Dr. Willett's letter," he remarked, taking the missive from her
and balancing it between his finger and thumb. Just then Oscar came back
with a rush.

"I know all about you, and who you are," said he, putting down the cup
and saucer he had brought with a clatter. "You're a sort of half-cousin
of mine, and a great-niece of Uncle Jonathan's," he blurted out.

"Well, since you know so much, suppose you come here and enlighten your
new half-cousin as to who I am. She has mistaken me for her uncle--and
naturally too, since you, as host for the time being, were rude enough
not to introduce us."

At this reproach Oscar left his tea-making, and approached the two: Inna
with burning cheeks, at her mistake about this unknown gentleman, not
her uncle.

"Well, this is Mr. Barlow--Dr. Barlow, some people call him, but he's
no such thing; he's a surgeon, and the one who plays David to Uncle
Jonathan--you understand?" questioned the boy, with humour sparkling in
his blue-grey eyes.

"Yes," nodded Inna shyly; "his very dear friend, you mean."

"Yes, that's about the figure," was the response, while the two bowed
with ceremony.

"And now, I am--tell Mr. Barlow who I am, please," pleaded the small
maiden.

"Well, this is Miss Inna Weston, the daughter of a certain Mercy
Willett, niece of Jonathan Willett, Doctor, who lived here years ago,
before my time. Now, old man, come to tea." With this, the boy slapped
the other on the arm with pleasant familiarity, and went back to his
tea-making.

Mr. Barlow led Inna to her seat, and saw her comfortable there, taking
his own chair beside her, while Oscar sat with his back to the
fire--like a cat on a frosty night, Mr. Barlow told him. Inna wondered
where her uncle was, but asked no questions as yet--only munched away at
her toast in her dainty way, and sipped her tea, trying hard to feel
that she was at home. As for Oscar, he made such sloppy work with the
urn, that Mr. Barlow had to say presently--

"Don't make a sea of the table, boy. You see what incapable creatures
we are, Miss Inna. I never could make tea, and your own eyes tell you
what Oscar can do."

"I suppose Uncle Jonathan makes tea when he is here," was Inna's reply.

At which the two gentlemen looked comically at each other.

"Well, I can't say I ever saw the doctor come down from the clouds
enough for that," observed Mr. Barlow dryly; "but I hope his little
great-niece--am I right in the pedigree, Oscar?--will set us to rights,
and bring in the age of civilisation for us."

Inna could but laugh a tinkling laugh at this, and asked timidly, "Do
you live here, Mr. Barlow?"

"No, dear; but I'm here morning, noon, and night. My head-quarters are
at Mrs. Tussell's, whose name ought to be, now, guess what?"

People must suppose she had an aptitude for guessing, Inna thought, and
asked with rosy cheeks was it "Fussy"?

"Just the word; only you mustn't tell her so," was the reply; at which
Inna shook her head, and said she could not be so rude. Then came the
sound of the doctor's gig outside the house, a step and a voice in the
passage.

"He'll not come in here, dear," Mr. Barlow told Inna, seeing her start
and change colour; "he'll have a cup of tea in his den, as we call it,"
at which Oscar nodded, and said, "And a good name too!"

Tea over, Mr. Barlow rose, and said "Good-bye for to-night, Miss Inna;
David is going to Jonathan," patted her head, and was gone.

"Is his real name David?" she asked shyly of this cousin she had no idea
of finding at Uncle Jonathan's; nor had her mamma either, she decided in
her own mind.

"No; William--Billy Barlow they call him in the village, only I didn't
say so just now," returned Oscar drily.

"Mind your lessons, Master Oscar," said Mrs. Grant, when she came in to
fetch the tea equipage.

"Fudge!" was the boy's response, he and Inna established on the hearth,
roasting chestnuts; and they were still there when Dr. Willett surprised
them by a footfall close behind them.

Up sprang Inna, like a startled daisy.

"So you're Mercy's little daughter?" said he, by way of greeting.




CHAPTER III.

DR. WILLETT--THE NUTTING EXPEDITION--THE FIRE.


"So you're Mercy's little daughter?" said the doctor, by way of
greeting.

"Yes," faltered Inna; but she put her hand in his; this Uncle Jonathan,
with whom she had come to live, was all she had in England now, except
Oscar and Mr. Barlow, who was nobody as yet. The doctor pressed her
small hand in his big strong one. Tall--taller than his friend
David--was he, with dark hair and beard--at least, they had been dark,
but were fast turning grey; his eyes were dark, piercing, and observant,
full of fire; still, a kindly face, a kindly manner had he.

"Well, little woman, I've read your mother's letter. I never intended to
be troubled with any more children after Oscar fell to my lot; but for
your mother's sake, and her mother's before her, I can't shut my door
against you. So now stay, and see if you can't open another door on your
own account." This is what he said, still holding her hand in his.

"Do you know what door I mean?" he asked, as the child darted an upward
glance at him.

"Yes," she nodded, "yes." She could not say more, her heart was thumping
so, but her small twining fingers in the doctor's palm told him a great
deal.

He patted her on the head, and let her go; he did not kiss her. Inna
wished he had when, later on, she was in bed, thinking of the many
to-morrows she was to spend in this new uncle's house. Her chamber was
up in one of the gables of the quaint old house; the windows overlooked
the garden and the home orchard, where, in the former, Michaelmas
daisies and sunflowers flaunted in the sunshine when she looked out the
next morning, and apples, rosy and golden, were waiting to be gathered
in the latter. Birds were twittering and peeping at her through the
ivy-wreathed window; away in the stubble fields, under the hills, sheep
were straying, all in a glory of golden light; while rooks cawed and
clamoured in the many-coloured elms by the house and garden, and all
sweet morning freshness was everywhere. You may be sure she soon
dressed, and tripped down the old-fashioned staircase--a dainty midge,
in blue serge frock and white-bibbed apron. Below, she found Mary, the
servant under the housekeeper, laying breakfast in the dining-room; and
while the child stood shyly aloof by a window, in came Mrs. Grant with
the urn, and her master behind her. Inna stepped forward, but her uncle
took no notice of her; he only passed on to his seat at the table, took
up his letters and newspaper, and, as it were, thus stepped into a world
of his own. Oscar stole in like a thief, and began his usual
tea-making--placing a cup by his uncle's plate, upon which he laid
slices of ham, carved as best he could; Inna, at a nod from him, cutting
a piece of bread to keep company with the ham; while Mrs. Grant gave
sundry nods, which the boy understood and returned, then she retired
from the scene. Not a word was spoken during breakfast-time. Oscar
helped himself and Inna to what the table afforded--ham, eggs, rolls,
honey, golden butter--all so sweet and clean and homely.

Before the young people had finished, the doctor rose and went tramping
out.

"Good morning," said he at the door, breaking the spell of silence.
Inna, rising, wished to spring toward him, but he was gone.

"There, he's safe till two o'clock," sighed Oscar.

"Safe?" said Inna.

"Yes; booked with his patients, you know. Some say he has patients on
the brain. I wish them joy of him."

"Don't--don't you like him?" she inquired falteringly.

"Do you?" asked the other, helping himself to an egg.

"I ought."

"Ought! I can't bear that word ought: 'tis dinned into my ears morning,
noon, and night. Now, I tell you what we'll do: we'll fling 'ought' to
the winds, and go a nutting expedition this morning."

In came Mrs. Grant.

"Well, Master Oscar, I should hope you'd go down to Mr. Fane's for
lessons to-day," said she.

"I can't; I've a prior engagement," said he, as loftily as a mouth full
of bread and butter and egg could utter it.

"And what's that, may I ask?"

"I've made a promise to a lady to go elsewhere."

"Oh, Oscar! never mind me; you ought to do your lessons, you know."

"I thought we flung that horrid word to the winds just now. There's no
ought in the case; I had a holiday yesterday, and I mean to to-day. I
mean to take Inna to Black Hole, and round through the woods, on a
nutting expedition--so there!"

This last to Mrs. Grant.

"Very well, Master Oscar; I shall have to set the doctor on to you
again. I hope, Miss Inna, you'll be a good little influence with him and
teach him to obey his uncle."

Oscar laughed, pushed back his plate, and left the table. "Now, Inna,
run and put on your hat and jacket, and we'll be off," said he to the
little girl.

"Go, dear," said the housekeeper, as the child hesitated. "I suppose he
means all right for this once, but he must take the consequence;" and
away went Inna for hat and jacket, wondering if it was right to go.

When she came down, Oscar showed her a packet of sandwiches in the
nutting basket, which Mrs. Grant had cut for them to eat if they were
hungry.

"She isn't a bad sort; her bark is worse than her bite," said Oscar of
her, when the two were well on their way.

On and on--over stubble fields they went, till by-and-by they were
taking a short cut through a carriage drive in Owl's Nest Park, as Oscar
informed Inna. It was a pretty bowery walk, overarched with beeches and
elms in all their autumn glory, and full of the clamour of rooks. Here
they met an old lady in a wheel-chair, pushed by a page-boy--such a
sweet sad-faced old lady was the occupant of the chair, with shining
grey curls peeping out from beneath her black satin hood. She was
wrapped in some sort of fur-lined cloak; and by her side walked two
little dark-faced, shy-looking girls of seven, quaintly dressed in rich
black velvet, very like two wee maidens stepped out of some old
picture, and each wearing a hood similar to that worn by their aged
companion.

[Illustration: "A DONKEY AND CART CAME DRIVING UP."]

"This is Madame Giche--spelt G-i-c-h-e--and her two grand-nieces; a
queer party, all of them," said Oscar, still leading on. "This isn't her
place: she can't live at her own place, they say, all about some trouble
she's had; and so she took the Owl's Nest of Sir Hubert Larch, who never
lives there, on lease."

"Are we intruding here?" inquired Inna.

"Oh, no; there is a right of way: that is, madame gives it, and people
take it. Come on."

He had the grace to raise his hat to the party as they passed them by,
and anon they were out of the park, and on a well-worn road. Here the
sound of wheels greeted them, and a donkey and cart came driving
up--Dick Gregory charioteer, and a girl of about Inna's age seated in
the bed of the cart behind him.

"Why, little friend," cried the boy, recognising Inna, "this is a happy
meeting!" and down he sprang, and seized her hand with a boyish grip.

"How d'ye do, Willett?" this to Oscar, who returned the salutation.

"Now you must be introduced to Trapper. Here, Trapper," said Dick,
turning to the donkey-cart.

"Don't be silly, Dick," cried the pretty little maiden. "You know I'm
not Trapper: at least, only to you, who call me Gin and then Trap and
Trapper. My name is Jenny;" and down she sprang to Inna's side.

"And I am Inna."

"Yes; Dick has told me your name."

"And how is your kitten?" Inna liked the pretty, free, fair-haired,
fair-faced girl.

"Oh, first-rate, thank you, isn't she, Dick?" said she, appealing to her
brother, who was just settling with Oscar.

"Oh yes! We'll just manage a morning of it in the woods; you can show
your cousin Black Hole another time. Isn't what?" he questioned of his
sister.

"Isn't Snowdrop first-rate?"

"Rather," returned he, with a nod at Inna, which made her blush and
laugh.

"I'm glad she's well. And so you call her Snowdrop?"

"Yes; and what do you think of our donkey? We call him Rameses: that's
Dick's choice of a name."

"He's a beautiful creature," returned Inna, stroking the animal's wise
old head.

"Yes," replied Dick, "I'm a lover of old names, so I thought I'd go back
to the Pharaohs. Not a bad idea, was it? though no compliment, I
daresay, to the old fogies."

"No," laughed Oscar; "but never mind about compliments for dead and gone
fogies."

"And what of the fogies of this generation?" inquired ready Dick.

"The same--never mind."

"But come, we must make hay while the sun shines. In with you, you two
girls, into the cart," said Dick, which they did, Jenny helping Inna.
Then up sprang the charioteer, Oscar beside him; crack went the whip,
and off they drove like the wind.

That nutting expedition was like a fairy dream to London-reared Inna;
the lads showed her a squirrel or two, a dormouse not yet gone to its
winter snooze, in its mossy bed-chamber. A snake wriggled past them,
which made her shudder; frogs and toads leaped here and there in dark
places. Then, oh, the whir and whisper of the autumn wind among the
trees! the lights and shadows! Oh, for the magic hand of her artist
father to make them hers for ever in a picture for her bedroom! But the
delight of a morning's nutting must come to an end--so did theirs; the
sandwiches demolished--share and share, as Oscar put it--they bethought
themselves of dinner and the road leading thereto, so once more they
were on their backward way, and parting company.

"Good-bye, mademoiselle!" cried Dick, as Inna stood at Oscar's side,
after she had kissed Jenny, and the two had vowed a girls' eternal
friendship. Then away went the donkey and cart, and our young people
hastened home, just in time for dinner. A meal silent as breakfast was
dinner, so far as they were concerned, for Mr. Barlow and the doctor
kept a learned conversation high above their heads all the time--so
Oscar said; and after it was over the boy vanished, nobody knew where.
As for Inna, she roamed in the orchard all the afternoon in a dream of
beauty, eating rosy apples, followed by tea--she and Mr. Barlow
alone--she making the toast and managing the urn: a living proof of
what can be done by trying, so the surgeon told her. Then he and the
doctor went out, and Inna crept out to the kitchen, to wonder with Mrs.
Grant where Oscar was, and what was keeping him.

"No good, Miss Inna; that boy'll go to the dogs if somebody don't take
him in hand. You try, dearie, what you can do with him," said the
housekeeper.

"I!" cried astonished Inna. She try what she could do with a big boy
like Oscar!

"But hark! that's the fire-bell; there must be a fire somewhere," said
Mrs. Grant, and out she went, with her apron over her head, to listen at
the back gates.

Inna, with no apron over her head, stole out to keep her company.

"Oh my!" said Mrs. Grant to shivering Inna. "I wish Master Oscar was at
home. I'm thinking he's a finger in the pie."

Ah! there was the fire, sure enough; it was a flare and a flame against
the darkening sky.

"What's alight?" inquired Mrs. Grant of a man who went hurrying by.

"Poor Jackson's little farm; they say 'tis going like tinder, and he's
half crazed," came back to them as the man ran on.

"Oh dear! that boy, what he'll have to answer for!" cried the
housekeeper.

"But we're not sure 'tis his work," said sensible Inna.

"No, dear; but there's seldom any mischief going that he don't help in
the brewing of."

Inna was silent, watching the red glare of the fire mounting
heavenwards.




CHAPTER IV.

OSCAR'S BURNT ARM--BLACK HOLE.


"You see, dearie," went on the housekeeper, "he's playing truant these
two days, and I don't like to bother the doctor, and get him into
trouble. I hide what I can, in pity for his friendlessness."

"Hasn't he anybody but Uncle Jonathan?" inquired Inna.

"No, dearie; father and mother both dead, leaving him not a penny.
'Twould have been a sad life but for master, as I tell him; but I think
that sets him more against the right than ever."

"Suppose you weren't to tell him, but ask him to do his studies,
and--and right things, for love of duty and love of pleasing you?"
suggested Inna.

"That's where it is. I think if he had a sister--now, if you were to get
him to love you, you'd be able to do anything with him. Love for
anybody is a mighty power, though 'tis said to be like a silk
thread--something not seen, but felt--you see, 'tis stronger than it
seems."

"Yes," sighed Inna; "mamma says a loving heart will find work to do
anywhere. Yes, mamma, I will try," said she inwardly, thinking of her
last talk with her dear mother, and that only on the evening before
yesterday, so short, and yet so long a time ago.

Well, Oscar did not come, so the two went in, leaving the fire to flare
itself out. Neither did Dr. Willett and Mr. Barlow return. It was quiet
anxious work, sitting there by the log-fire, hearkening to the ticking
of the old clock, waiting for someone who did not come--someone up to
mischief, as Mrs. Grant said. Out she went again, with her apron over
her head.

"Burnt to the ground, dearie--burnt to a tinder, is the farm: so Sam,
our carter, says; and 'twas done by some idle boys lighting a bonfire of
dry furze near." This was her report when she returned to the kitchen.

Then they heard the master and Mr. Barlow come in, and the housekeeper
went to carry them in supper. Ten o'clock, and they were going out
again, Inna heard them say. The little girl now stole out herself to the
back gates; there, in the shadow of the wall, she saw a moving shadow.

"Oscar!" She spoke his name; and Oscar stepped out into the moonlight
beside her.

"Where have you been?" she ventured.

"Where I like."

"Yes; but have you seen the fire?"

"Yes, I suppose I have."

"Did you--did you have----"

"Did I have a hand in setting it alight? Ah yes! there you go--you're
all alike."

"No, Oscar; no, but----" her small hands were clinging to his arm.

"Hands off!" cried he, shaking her off, as if he could not bear her even
to touch him.

His sleeve was in tatters, she felt, before he shook himself free.

"I want you to do something for me," said he, gloomily enough.

A startled "Yes," was the reply.

"Go and get some oil and some flour, and come up to my room--you know
your way in the dark, don't you?"

"Yes, I think----"

"Think! be sure, and be quick!" With this grumpy injunction he swung
himself away, hugging the shadows, and so into the house and upstairs.

Tap! tap! Gentle little Samaritan--she had the oil, if not the wine; and
when he bade her enter, she saw that she had indeed to bind up his
wounds. He stood with his arm bare to the elbow--a poor scorched arm,
from which charred skin was hanging.

"Now, see here: mix some flour and oil into a paste in this pomatum-pot,
and spread it on this handkerchief; then bind it on to my arm, and hold
your tongue. Can you do it, do you think?"

"Yes;" and the small girlish hands soon had the plaster ready.

"Poor arm!" said she, as the boy winced at her kindly but bungling
dressing.

"Fudge!" scoffed he.

"Oh, I wish you hadn't had anything to do with it!" tearing a
handkerchief into strips to bind it on with.

"Yes, that's all you know about it. What has Mother Peggy been saying
about me? I'm the dog with a bad name; I suppose she's hanged me."

"No; she said only kind words of you--at least, what she thought were
kind."

"Oh, ay! everybody is kind after that fashion, I suppose. Now, about
holding your tongue?"

"Do you mean I mustn't say anything about your burnt arm?"

"Yes."

"I won't, if I can help it."

"We know you can help it. Good night."

He let her go out, and she stole down to the kitchen, there to tell Mrs.
Grant, when she came in from the dining-room, that Oscar was in, and
gone to bed, without saying anything of what she had done.

"I say, come up here, and help me on with my jacket," called Oscar, the
next morning, from above stairs, to Inna below in the hall.

Up she ran, like a willing little friend in need, to the needy boy.

"This is my best jacket," said he, when the injured arm was safe in its
sleeve. "Now you hear what Mother Peggy will say when she sees me
adorned with it."

"Yes," returned Inna; "has it pained you to-night?"

"Well, yes; I never slept a wink till 'twas almost get-up time."

She looked at him; his face was worn, his eyes wild.

"Tell Uncle Jonathan, and let him see to it, or let me tell him."

"At your peril, if you do!" said he, like a very despot. "And besides,
'tis more like Billy Barlow's job than the doctor's."

"Let me tell Mr. Barlow, then," she pleaded.

"I tell you, you shan't. That's the worst of having a girl in a
mess--she won't hold her tongue."

"Yes, I will, if they don't ask me about it," said the child.

To which Oscar returned "Hum!" and ran downstairs, challenging her to
catch him. Well-nigh over Mrs. Grant he went, she carrying in the urn,
Inna like a dancing tom-tit behind.

"Have a care, Master Oscar," said the housekeeper, coming to a full
stop to let him pass. "And what's that best jacket on for?"

"Because the one I wore yesterday is in holes," was the moody reply; and
he slipped away into the dining-room, to end the discussion.

There must be silence there, for the doctor was in his place at the
table, buried in his papers, waiting for someone to minister to his
wants.

"I can't," whispered Oscar, after a vain attempt to wield the
carving-knife; and he and Inna changed places like two shadows. Well,
trying generally brings some sort of success: it did to Inna. Carved
very creditably were the slices of meat she laid on her uncle's plate;
and, fearing more of a deluge than usual at the urn, she took her seat
at that, and presided over the meal with dainty dignity.

"I hope you're going to lessons to-day," said Mrs. Grant, as, the doctor
gone, Oscar sauntered out into the passage.

"Yes, I am," was the curt reply.

"And bring me that torn jacket to mend."

"'Tis past mending," was the reply, and, shouldering his book bag, the
boy was gone.

"Do you think you could find your way down to the village, dearie, and
inquire for Mrs. Jackson?" said the housekeeper to Inna. "I've known her
from a girl, poor dear. Since she's married she's had losses, and now
'tis said she's lost all by the fire."

"I could find her by asking," returned Inna.

"True, dearie; you have a tongue in your head."

So a few minutes found Inna down in the heart of Cherton, asking for
Mrs. Jackson. She found her in a neat cottage, and helping the mistress
of the same to cook a monster dinner for two families. She looked pale
and sad, but brightened at Inna's kindly message, and the baskets of
comforts she told her Mrs. Grant sent with her and the doctor's
compliments.

"Thank you, dear; and my compliments in return; and my heart's best
thanks to that brave boy, your--your--what is he to you, miss? I suppose
he's something?" said Mrs. Jackson.

"Do you mean Oscar?"

"Yes--he who saved my boy at the risk of his own young life."

Inna's cheeks flushed, and sweet lights stole into her eyes.

"Do you mean----?" she faltered.

"I mean he rushed up the burning staircase, and brought down this little
chap," returned Mrs. Jackson, drawing a sunbeam of a boy of two to her
side, "when strong men hesitated and stood back. Didn't you know?"

"No; I know he burnt his arm."

"Burnt, miss! 'Twas a wonder he wasn't burnt to a cinder. Give him my
blessing--a mother's blessing--and tell him he ought to make a noble
man." This was Mrs. Jackson's message to Oscar as she stood at the door,
and watched the little girl away.

"Well, dear, that shows 'tisn't wise to condemn people before they're
tried," was Mrs. Grant's comment when Inna told her of Oscar's brave
deed.

Dr. Willett and Mr. Barlow would dine late, and would be away all day.
Oscar also failed to put in an appearance at dinner-time, so Inna dined
in solitary state in the great dining-room, and had a pleasant afternoon
in the orchard, where a man or two were gathering in apples. Still, she
wished she knew why Oscar did not come to dinner, and where he was, for
her heart was beginning to yearn already over the wilful, noble,
undisciplined boy. It had always been her dream to have a brother--a big
strong brother to lean upon, and here was one whom she would like to
gather to her.

"I didn't want any dinner, so saw no use in coming home," was the
account Oscar gave of himself that evening, when, at sundown, he came
sauntering in. But he took his revenge by doing wonders at tea-time,
sitting by the kitchen fire on a low stool, and eating his dinner, kept
hot for him. Inna was in the dining-room, presiding at her uncle's meal,
like a small queen.

"Does it hurt, dear lad?" inquired Mrs. Grant of the boy.

"No; what good is it to make a fuss about a scratch like that?" returned
he, wielding knife and fork as best he could, now one, now the other in
his left hand.

But lo! to the astonishment of all, out came Dr. Willett and Mr. Barlow
into the kitchen--who so seldom came there--followed by Inna.

"Oscar, let me see your arm," said the doctor.

Ah! well the thing was out--so much for a girl.

"I hardly know that I can, 'tis such a tight fit of a sleeve," returned
the boy, with a reproachful look at Inna.

"Well, it went in, I suppose, and it must come out," said Mr. Barlow,
coming to his side.

"Oh, don't, sir!" It was pitiful to hear the boy plead thus at the very
thought.

"Cut the sleeve," spoke the decisive doctor.

"Oh don't, sir, do that!"--it was Mrs. Grant's turn to plead now--"'tis
his best jacket."

"Yes, and his best arm, being the right; better sacrifice a jacket than
an arm"; and Mr. Barlow's scissors did the work, and laid bare Inna's
surgical dressing.

A nasty burn, but not unskilfully dressed for such young hands, they
said; then they dressed it their own way, prescribed a sling for the
arm, and a good night's rest for the boy.

"And, my boy," said the doctor impressively, "I've heard two reports of
you in the village, both bad and good; and I will let the good plead
with me against the bad this once, and prevail. But remember, one noble
deed doesn't make a life work: there's the boy's plodding on, learning,
and doing as you're bid, and a hundred other things--the very foundation
of a good useful life."

"'Tis such humdrum work," grumbled Oscar.

"And so is ours--noble art of healing, as it's sometimes called--eh, Mr.
Barlow?"

"Yes, it would be, if we weren't applying a salve to somebody's sore;
and I suppose that's what almost all work amounts to--salving somebody's
sore, easing the wheels of life somewhere," was that gentleman's reply.
"And the humdrum drudging of a schoolboy, in learning and unlearning, is
but the easing the wheels of his ignorant brain."

Well, whether Oscar laid this new thought to heart or not, certain it is
that he kept zealously to lessons and Mr. Fane, took kindly to Inna, and
called her "a little brick," and all the many flattering names found in
a boy's vocabulary. But his wound would not heal, for which the weather
was blamed, and the constant friction he gave it, until his two doctors
advised he should not race about so much; and so it came about that
November was well on its way before the arm was well, and Inna saw that
abyss of mystery, the Black Hole. Very like a lake, with an
unfathomable hole in the centre--or said to be unfathomable, because it
had been sounded by the villagers and no bottom found--over-spanned by a
bridge, its water having some hidden outlet, and lying on the north side
of Owl's Nest Park, among tangled bushes and faded herbage: such was
Black Hole. It was on a sunless hazy afternoon when they paid their
visit to the gloomy place. Oscar betook himself with boy-like zest to
testing the depth of the so-called unfathomable hole with a long pole he
used for leaping with, Inna watching him, and wondering the while
whether the hole, with its darkly swirling waters, were bottomless, as
it was said to be.

"Have a care," her companion had warned her. "Don't lean against the
rails of the bridge; the old thing is as crazy as crazy."

But, like a girl, as he said afterwards, she must needs forget; and lo!
as he poked and fathomed as he had often done before and made no new
discovery, a scream rang out, and he looked up to find Inna and the rail
had both vanished.

"I told you so," said he, like a lad in a nightmare, his hair standing
on end; and then in he sprang, with the forlorn hope of bringing her
out. Ah! there was a dark story told of the victim once sucked in by
that yawning mouth.




CHAPTER V.

INNA AT THE OWL'S NEST--MORE WRONG STEPS.


But that strong unseen Hand, so often stretched out in our great
extremities, was stretched out now, although only for the saving of one
little girl. It guided the boy to the spot where the poor little
floundering bundle rose to the surface, helped him to play the hero, and
to snatch her from those yawning watery jaws, that would fain have
swallowed her--she was shudderingly near to her end, but after a time he
grasped her tightly, and drew her to him.

At last he was landing after such a brief long struggle, his burden in
his arms, on the dreary bank, little dreaming that any spectator was
watching him play the man. Yet there were four--Madame Giche, her
nieces, and Phil, her page; and all four came bearing down upon him,
chair and all, as he laid Inna down among the rough grass a moment, to
just take breath, shake himself, and then home, or the poor mite would
die of cold. Her eyes were closed, and she looked very death-like, as it
was.

"Take her to the house, to the Owl's Nest," came the command, with the
tone of authority, from the depths of Madame Giche's black hood.

"I thought of taking her home," returned Oscar without ceremony.

"Yes, young people think a great many wrong thoughts; but if you take
her to the house, you'll be glad in an hour's time you did an old
woman's bidding," was the decisive reply.

Oscar caught up the insensible girl in his arms in moody silence; truth
to tell, he would be glad to get her into something dry and warm; she
certainly did look death-like.

"Do you know the short cut to the house?" inquired Madame Giche.

"Yes, thank you; I know."

"Can you carry her, or shall Phil help you?"

At this, he might have been the giant-killer in the old nursery tale,
carrying poor little Jack, by the way he took up his burden, and struck
away for the boundary of the park; a curt "No, thank you," ringing back
over his shoulder in scant courtesy as he went.

Then Madame Giche's party turned and went homeward by a less direct
road, because of her chair, and Black Hole was again deserted. Madame
Giche, however, despatched Phil to run forward with her message to the
servants, that the child was to be taken in and attended to; her nieces
propelling her along at a brisk canter, because she wished to be herself
early on the spot. So Phil and Oscar mounted the north terrace together.
Phil gave the alarm, the servants flocked out, and Long, Madame's own
maid, took possession of Inna, and bore her away to her own little room,
next to her mistress's bedchamber, on the first floor. Of course, Oscar
loitered about outside, on the terrace, like a lad in a book, to wait
for tidings; he was there when Madame arrived, and assisted her up the
steps, he on one side, Phil on the other, because a trembling fit,
brought on by the shock, was upon her. A frail little mite of a
gentlewoman was she between the two sturdy lads, her nieces, like meek
little handmaids, following behind them.

"Now, boy, if you're mad, I'm not. Come in and take off those wet
garments, and put on some of Phil's." So she half commanded half
persuaded him, still grasping his arm with her clinging fingers.

And for once the boy obeyed, and submitted to be so equipped, Phil
taking him under his especial care and leading the way to his bedroom.
Anon, when he descended the stairs, longing for tidings of Inna, Phil
grinning slily behind him at his second self, out stepped Long from
somewhere, and told him the little lady had come out of her swoon, and
they had given her something comforting, and tucked her up in bed.
"Madame Giche's compliments to Dr. Willett, and they would take good
care of her till to-morrow." Then Phil appeared with a cup of steaming
coffee, which Long made him drink before he left; then he set forth
homeward.

Willett's Farm was more dreary that evening than ever before, with
little cheery Inna away, if she had only known it. But she was sweetly
sleeping all the evening, in a bed hastily wheeled in to keep company
with Long's; and when, at midnight, she awoke to find herself there,
Long bending over her, the fire-light rosy on the hearth, a shaded lamp
somewhere behind her, you may be sure she felt like a story-book
heroine, not herself. Still she was herself, and when she had taken some
soup, been told that Oscar had gone home, and she was at the Owl's Nest,
she fell asleep, and woke the next morning to breakfast in bed. After
this she dressed herself, and went down to form the acquaintance of
Madame Giche and her grand-nieces.

"And so you're none the worse for your wetting, my dear?" said her
hostess, drawing her to her, and kissing her, after the little girl had
gone up to her, as she sat by the log fire, and timidly said--

"Good morning, Madame Giche. Thank you for being so good to me."

The child assured her that she was none the worse, her rosy face
testifying to the same.

"Then, dear, don't think about thanks. You are quite a pleasant surprise
visitor to us--lonely people; to me and my two little shy nieces, who
will be the better for having a little girl friend. Let me introduce
you; they're on the very tip-toe of waiting."

Then the two wee maidens came round from behind their aged relative's
chair, and were introduced as Olive and Sybil. Two dark-haired,
brown-skinned damsels were they, in quaintly cut velvet frocks, with
frillings of lace at throat and wrists.

"Now see, dear, it's pouring with rain. Do you think you could be happy
as our guest to-day, or must I send you home in the carriage?"
questioned Madame Giche.

They were in what was called the tapestried chamber, a room lined with
needlework, done by dead fingers of long ago: those of some of the
ladies whose portraits Inna was to see by-and-by in the grand staircase,
and the gallery running round the hall.

"I should like--what would you like me to do, ma'am?" faltered Inna.

"We should much like you to stay, dear," returned Madame Giche, still
holding her hand.

"Then, thank you, I should like to stay."

So it was decided, and Olive and Sybil, the twin sisters, drew away
their guest to look at pretty foreign ornaments, in profusion all about
the room.

"All grand-auntie's own," as they told her, "which we brought from
abroad. You see, this isn't our own home, but grand-auntie took it on
lease from a gentleman we met abroad. Grand-auntie has lived abroad for
years and years, ever since her heart was broken." So they chatted, and
enlightened Inna.

This was in the afternoon, after they had lunched with Madame Giche in
the tapestried room, and had wandered away up into the picture-gallery,
to look at some of the pictures.

"There, that is grand-auntie; isn't it like? That was done abroad," said
Sybil, who was the talker. Olive was sedate and somewhat silent.

There was no mistaking the sweet aged face peering down at them from the
canvas, and Inna said so.

"And that is grand-auntie's son--he who broke her heart, you know. He
disappointed her, went abroad, married, and died," whispered the child.
"Ah! whisper it," so she expressed it, "because it is all so sad.
Grand-auntie was never reconciled to him, you see, and so can never make
it up in this world. He had a wife and a little boy, and grand-auntie
has searched Europe over, she says, and can't find them."

A dark, handsome, wilful young face had Madame Giche's son, as seen in
his portrait--a young man just on the threshold of manhood. Inna stood
to gaze at it, wondering what it was stirring the depths of her
sensitive little heart, and filling it with a lingering pain.

"Grand-auntie says these two pictures have no right here, and calls them
alien pictures among aliens, because the house isn't ours and the
pictures don't rightly belong here; but she took her son's portrait with
her in all her travels, and her own was done abroad, and of course she
brought them here."

"His wife wrote the letter telling of his death, and that he asked
grand-auntie to forgive him--and that was all. She has never been able
to find the wife nor the son."

"'Tis sad," sighed Inna; "because she might have been so fond of the
son."

"Papa's portrait is at Wyvern Court--that's grand-auntie's own place,
you know. Grand-auntie says we shall be twin heiresses by-and-by."

"And your papa is--" here Inna flushed at her inquisitive question.

"Dead; and mamma too," said grave-browed Olive.

"Do you like living at the farm with your uncle?" inquired sprightly
Sybil.

"Yes; only I haven't been there long--and--and a grand-uncle isn't like
a grand-auntie," said Inna.

"And Dr. Willett hasn't got a broken heart," returned Sybil; "I suppose
doctors don't have broken hearts."

Well, the three dined in state at six with Madame Giche; the children
were having a rather free-and-easy time of it, for their governess, Miss
Gordon, was away nursing somebody ill, and so they did very much as they
listed, so long as they did not weary their aged relative.

What a charmed life was that into which Inna took her one day's peep,
and the outcome of it all was that when Miss Gordon returned she was to
go up to the Owl's Nest, and have lessons with the twins. Meantime, she
often spent a day there, and was brought home of an evening in the
carriage; then Sybil and Olive came for tea at the farm, and, after a
delightful evening spent in roasting chestnuts and the like, went back
in their turn in the carriage, the happiest girls, perhaps, alive. Thus
for a time all went merrily as Christmas bells; but one morning Oscar
broke the pleasant spell by announcing, "I'm not going down to Mr.
Fane's to-day," as Inna waited for him at the door to walk as far as the
Rectory gates with him, on her way to the Owl's Nest, her seat of
learning.

"Oh! I wish you were," said Inna.

"Why?" gruffly.

"Because you ought; because 'tis right."

"Oh, bother right! I'm not going; in fact, I can't. Dick Gregory's
coming over; there's to be steam threshing in the yard, no end of fun,
and I can't disappoint him. Besides, it can't be far wrong; doing it
under uncle's very nose;" and away went the boy, out of sight of his
cousin's reproachful eyes.

When Inna came home from the Owl's Nest in the evening, a drizzling rain
had come on. Oscar was absent somewhere with Dick Gregory, the two
gentlemen still out; so after tea the little girl sat down with her
knitting somewhat drearily by Mrs. Grant's side, with tears not far
from her eyes, because her cousin would persist in taking these sudden
and backward steps.

"I know he's to be a farmer, but there, even farmers mustn't be
blockheads of dunces, as Oscar'll be if he don't alter," said Mrs.
Grant.

"To be a farmer?" inquired Inna.

"Yes, dearie, that's why his uncle is keeping on the farm. He talked of
selling or letting it years ago, when it fell to him by heirship, but he
didn't, but kept it on and on; and when his brother's orphan came to
him, he said he'd keep it for him, if I didn't mind seeing to it a few
years longer; and I said I didn't, being a farmer's daughter. I think
I've made a better farmer than--than your uncle," laughed the good
woman. "So the farm is for Master Oscar."

"So Oscar is to be a farmer," mused the little girl, hearkening for his
coming, as she sat by the wood fire, while Mrs. Grant went presently to
attend to the two hard-working doctors, just come in.

In he came at last.

"Well, Master Oscar, I hope you've had your swing," said the
housekeeper, meeting him in the passage.

"Yes, I have; and now I am going at once to make it straight with the
doctor," he peeped into the kitchen to say to Inna. "That's a step in
the right direction, you must confess;" and was gone.




CHAPTER VI.

INNA'S FIRSTFRUITS--ON THE TOR.


The going in to make confession of his neglect of his lessons by Oscar,
that night, was like a very firstfruits to loving little Inna, in her
endeavour to influence this big, strong, wilful cousin for good. Nay,
she shamed him into industry and painstaking by her own application to
studies, going to and from the Owl's Nest, "like clockwork, you little
grinder!" as the boy expressed it, making his awkward admission to her
on Christmas Eve, the two wreathing the house with holly and evergreens.
This was something which Carlo and Smut the black cat thought it their
duty to look into, to judge from the way they pryingly inspected the
monster heap of greenery in the wide passage, where the boy and girl
worked, making Inna laugh and laugh again, till her uncle peeped out of
his study door to inquire what was the matter.

"I'm only laughing at Carlo and Smut, uncle," was her shamefaced reply.

"Ah! laugh and grow fat." With this, he went in and shut the door.

"Not at all a speech to address to a lady," remarked Mr. Barlow,
crossing the hall at the moment. "But Christmas is the time for
liberties of all sorts and unheard-of requests--have you any of the
latter, fair lady?" and the surgeon halted behind her.

"I have one little wish, and 'tis about uncle and his den," ventured
Inna, blushing a little.

"Well, suppose you tell me, and let me be the go-between--no enviable
part to play, remember, to put a finger in anybody's pie, much more in
that of a doctor and a young lady combined."

"May I put a bit of holly in uncle's den?"

"Make Christmas in the lion's den, eh, Oscar! Well, I'm off; but let me
make sure of my errand. I go to prefer a petition from the lamb to the
lion for permission to enter his den with a flag of truce." In he went
into the study.

"In the name of the lion, I say go in, little lamb, and at once," he
came out almost immediately to say, and he stood by Oscar and the holly
heap, while Fairy Inna went on her magic mission.

After that evening the doctor's study doors were open to Inna once and
again; she tapped timidly for permission to go in and make up his fire
on the cold evenings which came in with the new year, when snow lay upon
the ground, and Mrs. Grant told her that most likely her studious,
absorbed uncle was sitting with his fire gone out, and she herself dared
not intrude to replenish it.

"Come in, dear," he would say at such times. "You'll not disturb me."
And before the winter was over he named her his "Little Salamander;" and
once or twice peeped out and called for her when she did not come.

Well, winter was over at last, and March on its blustering way; the
lambs in the fields, the colts in their paddock, and young exultant life
everywhere. It was holiday time with Inna, for Miss Gordon was away with
that invalid somebody again. Dick Gregory was still running wild in his
happy banishment from school; Jenny, _alias_ Trapper, was running wild
with him whenever she could persuade the dear old lady who played the
part of governess to her to forego her tales of ill-learnt lessons. A
sad dunce was busy Mr. Gregory allowing his merry little daughter to
grow up to be.

Well, with so many holiday keepers, Oscar dared to join hands, and to
take French leave, as he called it, in plotting and planning an
expedition to the Tor without asking permission of his uncle. Not that
he anticipated a refusal, but just because young people will persist in
thinking stolen waters are sweet--sweeter than any other waters. Ah,
well! we know what the wise man says about the bread of deceit; it
points out much the same moral.

But about the Tor. This was a high elevation--almost a mountain compared
with the surrounding hills for miles--whence the sea could be descried,
a misty mystery, not so far away; and around which sudden fogs wreathed
themselves, shutting in those unfortunate enough to be on its heights in
a rare tangle of perplexity when it thus chose to wrap itself up in this
sullen mood. For there were ugly holes, pitfalls, and crevices in its
ragged sides, making its descent a serious thing, except for adepts in
climbing and scrambling down, even in the fair light of day. Moreover,
there was on one side a disused flint-quarry, called by the ominous name
of the Ugly Leap, because, once in the remote past, a shepherd boy,
seeking a wandering lamb, had lost his way in the fog, having doubled
and turned in his course unknowingly, and finally had fallen over the
quarry side. Ah, well! he lost his life; and so his sad tale was told,
and the Ugly Leap, with its suggestive name, bore witness to the same.

There were sea-fogs which swept up, and made the Tor so dangerous, Mrs.
Grant affirmed; but Oscar always said "Fudge!" to this--a pet word of
his, as he did on that fair March morning, when not a cloud or an atom
of fog was to be seen anywhere, but all was cold and brilliant, as some
March mornings are.

"Just the morning for the old Tor," the lad said decisively: "the views
splendid, sea and all."

"But how about school and your uncle?" inquired Mrs. Grant.

"Oh, they'll do very well, if you don't split upon me. I mean to go, and
Inna won't be mean enough to go with me and play tell-tale-tit
afterwards; and besides, uncle wouldn't refuse me this one day, just to
show Inna the Tor."

"But suppose we were to wait and ask him?" suggested Inna.

"I can't wait. Dick Gregory and his sister are coming over. We shall
make such a jolly party, and there'll be more fun to steal a march upon
someone:" this was Oscar's reasoning.

Perhaps Inna ought to have stood out against this stealing a march, as
it was for her the expedition was said to be planned, but she said
nothing; she had set her heart upon seeing the Tor, and realising
somewhat of the thrilling sensation of an Alpine climber; and she was
but nine--no great age for unerring wisdom. "Young people's heads are
renowned for folly." Mrs. Grant said something like this when Dick and
Jenny mustered at the gates, and the four set off, fortified with a good
supply of sandwiches and other nice things in a satchel, which Oscar
swung over his shoulder, traveller fashion; and so they started. The two
little dwellers at the Owl's Nest looked out at them longingly at the
park gates, as they passed that way; not far from the Black Hole, with
its thrilling memories, did their road lead them. Then away on through
young corn, and other crops that dared put forth their greenness in the
cold health-giving March air; and anon they had reached the Tor.

Up, up, still mounting up, they went, putting their best foot before, as
their two guides admonished the girls, giving them many a tug and many a
pull; and when they were half-way up, down they sat in the sunshine, and
ate a lunch picnic, taking sundry sips of cold water from a bottle Oscar
insisted on bringing, because he said climbing was such thirsty work in
the clear cold air of the old Tor. Well, after this they went mounting
up again, sometimes, like spiders, on all fours.

"It does take the breath out of one," said Dick, tugging at Trapper,
who, girl-like, kept slipping back, Oscar doing the same with Inna.

Inna, the Londoner, was a very poor climber; but once on the summit,
what exultant delight was there!--the blue heavens above their heads;
the sunny landscape, in its dainty spring dress, at their feet; the
Owl's Nest in the distance not nearly so imposing to look upon seen from
that elevation; the sea--they could even discern somewhat of its
shimmering upheaving, in this clearest of clear March mornings.

Dick, who was gifted with far-reaching sight, affirmed he could see the
sails of the fishing-smacks, but none of the others could; still they
all clapped their hands, and sang in a wild chorus:

   "The sea! the sea! the open sea!
    The blue, the fresh, the ever-free!"

"I mean to be a sailor," said Oscar, when the singing ended. Silence
reigned on the old Tor, save for the blustering wind, which played havoc
with the girls' hair, and clutched at all their hats.

"Oh, Oscar! and uncle intends you to be a farmer!" cried Inna, her
tongue running away with her better judgment, which would have whispered
her to think twice before she spoke once. But her heart was stirred with
pity for Oscar, and for her uncle, knowing what Mrs. Grant had said
about the boy's future.

"And so Mother Peggy has been whispering that into your ear," was the
scoffing reply.

"Mrs. Grant told me so; but I don't know that there was any whispering
about it," returned the little girl.

"Well, she told you what'll never be. I mean to be a sailor, so there!"

"To be a farmer is no bad berth," said sensible Dick.

"Oh yes, for them who take to it; but that's not I. I mean to be a
sailor, like my father before me."

"Oh! but, Oscar, what will uncle say?" cried Inna.

"Oh, he'll get over it. Every boy has a right to choose his own
profession, and he knows it."

"Yes; but 'tisn't a right every boy goes in for. I meant to be a farmer,
and my father set his heel upon that notion, and said I must be a
doctor," said Dick.

"Well?" and Oscar waited to hear more.

"I shall be a doctor; no good comes of a boy going on trying to go
against his father's way or will."

"No," said the other, somewhat taken aback; "a father is different from
an uncle."

"Yes," was Dick's retort. "I suppose an uncle would expect a little more
yielding of number one to number two."

"Why?" growled Oscar, not liking Dick's views of the case.

"Because of gratitude. I suppose gratitude ought to have a voice with a
fellow about his father's wishes; but it ought to have two voices with
those of an uncle playing a father's part."

"Well, an uncle's wish ought not to make one wreck one's life; and
that's what I shall do if I am a farmer."

"Phew! you'd be more likely to be wrecked as a sailor now," replied Dick
loftily.

"Well, I mean to stand up for my rights," contended Oscar.

"Better not, if you value your peace of mind. Since I've given up
youth's charming dream of farming--ha! how the words rhyme!--I've been
as happy as a peg-top," answered Dick.

The girls smiled.

"Oh yes," grumbled Oscar, "well enough for you to laugh. You girls never
have to choose or wish--you always have all you want."

"Oh, come, Willett; little friend there could contradict that, I know,"
said Dick. "But we didn't come up here to discuss our wants and wishes.
Suppose we look about a bit, and see the sights. Look, Miss Inna, that
jutting rock yonder, by the sea, is Swallow's Cliff, and behind it is a
little bay;" and then he drew her away to look down the Ugly Leap. A
dizzy height it was to gaze down from above, with a deep gorge at its
foot, in which a stream of water gurgled, said by some to have a
connection with Black Hole, the lad told her; over which Inna shuddered
and turned away.

Then they all sat down, and lunched in earnest--a late lunch, for the
afternoon was fast slipping away--and took more sips from Oscar's
water-bottle. And while they chatted, laughed, and loitered on foot, for
it was becoming bitterly cold to sit down any longer, up came the enemy,
from the sea it may be, behind their backs; at any rate, it was there
with them--ere they realised it the mist was come. Surely the old Tor
wasn't going to turn nasty and ill-natured to-day, of all days! they
said, in startled dismay; and Oscar affirmed he had seen the fog settle
and rise, settle and rise, as fickle as any girl's temper. "'Twas
nothing," he said; "it would lift."

But it was something, and it did not lift; instead, it shut them in so
that they could not see one another's faces; and oh! the girls' teeth
chattered with cold. Worse, snow began to fall--blinding snow, which
enveloped them quite. Well for them that they had put on fur-lined
cloaks and overcoats, but----

"I say, we're in for it!" cried Dick; that was when they stood deep in
snow, and the cold was chilling them to the very bone.

"Don't you think you could steer us down out of this, Willett? You know
the old villain better than I do. We shall freeze!"

And Oscar said, "No; better freeze than lose one's way, and----" They
knew he was thinking of the shepherd lad and the Ugly Leap.

"Still, something must be done," urged Dick; then the two lads made the
shivering girls move and spring up and down, and hoped that the storm
would clear. But it did not.

Would anyone come to find them? they wondered.

"Well, I'll make the attempt to go down and get a lantern, and bring
back someone," volunteered Oscar at last. "I don't mind for myself, but
I can't play guide for----"

"Ay, I know," agreed Dick; "to be hampered with other people's lives is
a great responsibility. Well, take your own life in your hands and go,
and I'd take mine and go with you; but----"

"You stay there with the girls," growled Oscar, and gripped their hands,
as in parting, all the way round.

They let him go a few steps away, and his shadowy form was lost. The
girls clung to Dick, too cold, too scared, too much as in a dreadful
dream, to cry--ay, too much benumbed. The boy shouted, Oscar responded;
once and again shouts were exchanged, then came a scream--a scream so
shrill that it seemed to cleave their poor failing hearts in two--and
then silence, blank silence, save for the howl of the wind as it whirled
the snow. Dick shouted himself hoarse, but there came no answer.
Something terrible must have happened to Oscar.




CHAPTER VII.

OSCAR LOST--A FRUITLESS SEARCH.


The dead silence that followed, save for the hooting of the storm, was
more terrible, if that could be, than Oscar's scream, for it told of
what? They did not say, but their hearts throbbed out what they feared.

"Oh, Dick! what shall we do?" cried the little girls, clinging to him.

He was a boy so strong, so brave--surely he could think of something.
Well, he did think of something, but that was after they had shouted
"Oscar! Oscar!" till the storm itself seemed the name. This is what he
thought of.

"There is nothing to be done but for me to go and look for him."

It sounded like a miserably forlorn hope, and the girls thought so; for
they clung to him, crying, "Oh, Dick, Dick!" and almost unnerved him.

"Well, I can do no good up here, and it seems heartless to hear that
cry, and not to go a step to see what can be done. You know he ventured
his life for us."

"Yes; but throwing away your life wouldn't save his if--if it isn't
lost," faltered fond little Jenny.

"No," returned her brother; "and, God willing, I don't mean to throw
away my life."

They were silent for a moment, while the storm raved on. I think they
all breathed a sort of wordless prayer, then Dick spoke.

"Now, you girls must stand by each other, and comfort each other; and,
whatever you do, don't sit down and give in to sleep. Good-bye."

There was no wringing of hands; the three could not bear it with that
scream of Oscar ringing in their ears.

He went away, his shadowy figure vanishing in the obscurity almost
immediately, as Oscar's had done. Then the two girls were alone. Shout
after shout rang reassuringly back to them, and they screamed back
theirs in reply. True, Dick's shouts were farther away each time, but no
screams followed; then there came a break, and they heard nothing.
Very, very much alone they were now.

Well, down in the village people were shutting doors, closing shutters,
and heaping up fires, and saying what a cold snowy ending it was to such
a fair day, as they made themselves cosy, little dreaming there were two
small wanderers up on the old Tor in the storm. The two children could
picture it all, and wondered what was doing at the farm: whether they
were in a great fright about them--Mrs. Grant, Dr. Willett, and Mr.
Barlow. Jenny thought too of what they were saying and doing at her
home, but oh! where was Dick, where was Oscar? How the minutes
lengthened into hours in the cold, the weariness, ay, even drowsiness.
But they must not yield to sleep--Dick had warned them of this; they
knew that sleep up there in that extreme cold meant death. What should
they do?

Oh! what was that? An ugly shadow of some monster beast looming upon
them from out that vast whirling waste of snow. This was when hope was
very low in their hearts; it seemed that it was an hour or two since
Dick had left them, and no help had come--nothing; and they had
pictured themselves two little maidens, stiff, stark, dead, and cold,
found by someone, at some time, up there all alone. Now here was this
apparition bearing down upon them. They shrieked and clung to each
other; they could not move; they had no boy to fight for them. Fight!
Why, it was dear old Carlo from the farm. How he barked, and whined, and
caressed them! They could but laugh and cry in the same breath at his
funny antics. And this laughter and crying, and the efforts they made to
keep on their feet under his wild hugs and leaps, stirred their blood;
and with this, hope leaped up within them again.

"Oh, Carlo! where are they all? are they coming?" cried Inna, her arms
about his neck.

At which he licked her face, barked, and seemed to hearken, as if he too
wanted someone. Why, surely the storm was clearing: they could see the
glimmer of a lantern bobbing, now here, now there, as if someone was
seeking and searching; and when Carlo barked a shout followed, and the
dog bounded away, with his back covered with snow, like a very Father
Christmas of a dog. They did not think of what they were like, with
help coming--an assurance, as they took it, that Dick's life had not
been thrown away. Back came Carlo, and with him Dr. Willett, Mr. Barlow,
and Sam the carter from the farm, and--and that was all. Where was Dick?
Both children rushed into the arms of the rescuers.

"Thank Heaven!" said Dr. Willett, pressing his snowy little niece close
to him.

"Thank Heaven!" muttered Mr. Barlow over Jenny, just such another
snowball.

"But where is Dick--where is Oscar?"

"Lost, both lost!" sobbed the two poor little troubled hearts, as they
poured out their story.

"No, no; boys are not so easily lost," said Mr. Barlow, he and the
doctor shaking the snow from the cloaks of their two small charges, and
preparing to bid "Good night" to the old Tor. "'Tis true we've seen
nothing of them, but that proves nothing--they may be at the farm and in
bed by this time." But in an aside he whispered to the doctor, "I don't
like Oscar's scream, though;" and the doctor shook his head, as over an
obstinate patient, when he scarcely knew what to do with him.

"Do you take the lantern, Sam," went on the surgeon to the carter, "and
search about for them. Of course, even give the Ugly Leap a call, and
make inquiry for them; and when I've played the polite man, and seen the
doctor well on his way with these young ladies, I'll join you--two heads
are better than one even in the matter of looking up two boys that we're
not sure are lost on a snowy night."

With this, Sam marched off with the lantern, and Carlo with him, as if
he understood the plan of operation, and that the lads were missing, and
he must play his part in finding them.

"Better walk, dears; 'twill stir your blood," said Dr. Willett at
starting; and so they did for a time, but before they reached the farm
they were glad to be carried, like two small over-done children as they
were.

By the time they had reached the foot of the Tor the snow clouds had
quite cleared, and the moon shone. Ah! upon what were those pale beams
falling on those snowy heights? Not upon Dick, for when the party
reached the farm they found that he was there, safe in bed, after being
held almost a prisoner by Mrs. Grant. "You see, sir, he was that mad to
be off again, when he heard you and Mr. Barlow had started for the Tor,
that I had to shake some sense into him, and put him to bed--the best
place for him, too, for he was ready to drop," so the housekeeper told
her master. Mr. Gregory, too, had just arrived to make inquiries for his
two missing ones, so the three doctors turned into the snowy night
again, to follow in Sam's and Carlo's wake, and hear of what success
they had met with in their search.

None; nothing; nobody: this was Sam's three-worded account of his
failure--for it was failure--while Carlo hung his head, dropped his tail
forlornly, and whined like a dog baffled.

He, Sam, had been to the Ugly Leap, and beat about everywhere he could
think of, but could find no trace of the boy. All the dreary round he
and the two doctors went again; all the long night they were out in the
snow; but it was a fruitless quest--they were fain to return home in the
grey light of the morning, with only this bare certainty, that Oscar was
lost--to them at least. Dr. Willett was very sore at heart, as he and
Carlo walked a little apart from the others of the returning party, the
dog abject and depressed in attitude as he trotted by his side, as if
conscious of what his master was feeling.

Mr. Gregory looked upon his sleeping children and returned home; the
others retired for an hour's rest before going out to their sick
patients. Besides, there were new search parties to be organised. To the
Ugly Leap went the doctor again as the day wore on; the dark waters of
the gorge were searched, so far as such a mysterious stream could be
searched, emerging from the heart of the earth, and only flowing a few
yards, it may be, in the light of day, ere it dived away into the
darkness and secrecy from which it had come. Ah! there was neither sign
nor token of the missing boy, there or elsewhere. Nothing,
nowhere--these were the words that went the round of Cherton, with their
dreary hopelessness, as the days flowed on, and tidings went here and
there of the lost boy, while his description was sent to the police
authorities, far and wide.

But there came no answer as day succeeded day, and March blustered
itself away, and sweet fickle April took its place; all was silence, as
if the lad had indeed vanished from the earth. Had he?

Inna went daily for lessons to the Owl's Nest. It was well to get away
from the house, Mrs. Grant said, for the child moped and grew pale under
the suspense and mystery of what had befallen this strong, wilful,
good-natured cousin of hers, whom she had been gathering to her as the
brother she had long sighed for. True, Jenny came over to see her, for
she too was lonely, with Dick gone back to school; but what could Jenny
understand about her heartache?--she with her brother safe at school,
while Oscar, Inna's all but brother, was nobody knew where.

"I wish he hadn't played truant that day, and I wish I hadn't let him:"
this was the burdened little plaint, making her heart so heavy, and
which she ventured to pour out to Mr. Barlow one day.

"Oh, my dear little lady, don't think that what happened came of his
playing truant. I know it isn't a pleasant thought that there was that
little hitch of underhand doings; and if he'd only mentioned the going
to the Tor, we could have told you all snow was coming, thanks to the
glass. But, mind me, we don't get our deserts in that way, or we should
be always having a whipping. And I never give up hope with a patient
till the last remedy has been tried and fails; and, remember, there is
no last remedy with a wise unfailing Providence." This was the surgeon's
reply.

"Oh, yes. But suppose he is dead, was killed, washed under the Tor by
the dark waters of the brook at the Ugly Leap," sighed the child.

"Oh, well," was the answer, "we can suppose almost anything--at least, a
little imaginative girl can; but suppose he is dead--which I do
not--dead or alive, he is in God's good keeping," was the reply.




CHAPTER VIII.

AT THE OWL'S NEST--THE SONG--THE SURPRISE.


Inna now had two new thoughts to ponder over. "Remember, there is no
last remedy with a wise unfailing Providence;" "Oscar in God's good
keeping." They came to her with thrilling freshness one day in the
gallery at Owl's Nest, as she wandered from picture to picture, musing
and dreaming.

She was often at the Owl's Nest. Besides going to and fro to lessons,
Madame Giche invited her to stay there for days together; it was good
for her little nieces to have a child companion, and it was good for the
little girl herself, for, as has been said, she moped and grew pale over
Oscar's disappearance. So, although they missed her at the farm, they
were glad to send her there. Jenny Gregory was invited also: quite a
bevy of young people did the four make, wandering through the old house,
not intruding upon its aged mistress, save at stated times and seasons,
but making a pleasant holiday of it; notwithstanding lessons with Miss
Gordon again, and the strumming through of many scales and exercises on
the piano. They never tired of roaming the terraces, where the peacocks
eyed them askance, and spread out their beautiful tails at them as in
proud disdain--those walking flowers of girls, who seemed to vie with
them and their plumage in their pretty bright spring dresses.

Glorious weather had followed Oscar's disappearance. It was May now, and
the other little girls were out in the park, gathering daisies, and
having a romp with Carlo, who would often come self-invited when Inna
was there. But, Inna had stolen away from them, for the rare treat of
being alone in the gallery, to admire and think about the pictures. That
of Madame Giche's son had a strange interest for her, a stranger picture
in a strange house, save for that of his mother keeping it company, like
loving hearts that could not be separated. Those dark, smiling,
beautiful eyes of his thrilled her through; she could not say why they
always made her think of her father and mother; but then, perhaps, it
was because they were strangers in the land of beautiful pictures. At
any rate, the eyes seemed to belong to her, to follow her, as picture
eyes will, with a strange wistfulness; she could but wonder that the
possessor of such beautiful eyes could ever give his mother pain, part
from her in anger, and break her heart. Of this last he never knew; he
sent her a loving message at the end, begging her forgiveness; and she
gave it to him, so far as it can be accorded to the absent and the
dead--but it broke her heart. Then followed her search for his little
son, whom she had never found. If life had no losses, no mistakes, she
wondered where this missing little one was, in that indistinct shadowy
uncertainty where Oscar was. Would either ever be found?

Outside lay the park, bathed in afternoon sunshine; she could see it all
from the side window, and her young companion idling by the moat, where
the marsh marigolds were blooming bright and yellow in the sunshine.
There came a rustle as of a garment, and Madame Giche, leaning on her
gold-headed cane, appeared, travelling towards her.

"You here, my dear?" said she, in her gentle way, laying her hand on the
little girl's bright head.

"Yes, Madame Giche."

"Wouldn't you be better out in the sunshine with the rest, rather than
up here moping?"

"I wasn't moping, dear Madame Giche. I was looking at the pictures, and
thinking about them;" and the child gave a little forced laugh over her
confession.

"Well, what do you think of them all? Now, which do you think is the
handsomest face here?" And Madame Giche gave a sweeping glance round, as
she stood leaning on her stick.

"This is the face I like best," was the child's reply, glancing up at
that stranger face, "save for that of his mother."

"This is the face I like best, my dear, but he broke my heart. Do you
know who it is?" inquired the mother, a thrill in her voice.

"Yes, dear Madame Giche--your son," returned Inna, with a child's
sensitive shame at having listened to so much from Sybil.

"Then--then, you know his story?"

"Yes; Sybil told me. Forgive me, dear Madame Giche, if I ought not to
have heard it. Sybil said I might; it was no secret, when we were
talking of it." Inna's small fingers grasped Madame Giche's thin ones.

"Yes, dear; it is no secret."

The child stroked the hand she held, wondering what she ought to say
next, a tear trickling down her cheek; and Madame Giche saw it.

"Are those tears for me, little Inna?" she asked gently.

"Yes." A shy "Yes" it was.

"My dear, that will never do--young people's sunshine should not be
overshadowed by old people's clouds. Now, do you know what I want you to
do?"

"No, dear Madame Giche."

"To come down and sing to me."

The beautiful mellow-toned piano from the drawing-room had been removed
to the tapestried chamber, and a new one sent from London to fill its
place. Quite little musical parties did the aged lady have, now and
then, of an evening, in the gloaming, the four children, with lights at
the piano, trilling in their bird-like voices some little snatch of a
juvenile song, duet, trio, and sometimes a quartette, their nimble
fingers wandering among the keys the while in a tangle of melody. But of
all the four, their aged listener loved best to hear Inna sing: her
voice was so plaintive, so expressive. The charm lay in this: that she
was always thinking of her mother at such times, and her heart seemed to
speak in her voice. It did to-night, when she sat down to the piano, her
gentle old friend on the hearth by the smouldering log fire.

"Sing that little thing I heard you practising so nicely yesterday,"
came to her across the room. So, with a tinkling little prelude, she
began--

   "A daisy wept in the moonlight pale,
      And bowed her beautiful head,
    And a little white moth came dancing by--
     'Why weep, sweet daisy?' it said.

  "'I weep for that which can never be,
      I sigh for a wider sphere--
    Would, little moth, I had wings like thine!
      Instead, I am rooted here.'

  "'A moth, my life is a sweet content,
      But no worthy life for thee.'
   'Change!' cried the daisy; 'take my place;
      A little white moth I'd be.'

   "And lo! the daisy took silver wings,
      And forth from the meadow flew;
    The little white moth became a flower,
      A daisy-cup dash'd with dew.

   "The wide earth blessed the changeling flower,
      The heavens smil'd down above;
    A boundless life was the daisy's life,
      Her mission, a lowly love.

   "A little white moth, with broken wings,
      Came home, when nights were drear,
    To breathe her last on the daisy's breast.
      She had missed her rightful sphere."

"Yes, dear; it's not so much what we are, or where we are, but what
we're doing, that makes a life of usefulness and fulness," said Madame
Giche, when the ditty came to an end.

"Yes; in filling others' lives we fill our own. Is that what you mean,
Madame Giche?" inquired Inna, leaving the piano, and coming to kneel on
the hearth.

"Yes. The daisy wasn't thinking of what she was doing, but rather of
herself; seeking great things for herself, not seeing--poor little
thing!--that in just blooming where she was placed she was in a way
blessing heaven and earth, and making her own crown; and missing that,
her life was a failure."

Just then in came the three little girls from the park, Miss Gordon with
them.

"Oh, grand-auntie, we've brought such a lovely bunch of marsh
marigolds," cried Sybil. "Jenny has them;" and Jenny came forward,
dropping on one knee to present them, and tossing her hat on the floor.

The kindly old lady patted the yellow-haired fluffy head, taking the
flowers from her, and touching their petals as in fond reverence.

"Children, at the sight of these flowers I always see myself a child
again," said she, a sweet far-away light in her dark eyes.

"And what do you see, grand-auntie--what were you like?" inquired
nimble-tongued Sybil.

"Yes, dear Madame Giche, what were you like?" echoed Jenny.

"My dear, I was just what Sybil is now. I half fancy, sometimes, that it
must be myself, when I see her running about on the terraces."

"But your home wasn't here, grand-auntie," said Olive, surprised out of
her silence.

"No, dear; 'tis the house recalls me to myself. Wyvern Court was very
different from this."

"Was that the name of your home, Madame Giche?" inquired matter-of-fact
Jenny, out of the silence that followed.

"The dearest spot on earth to you--wasn't it, grand-auntie?" prattled
Sybil.

"Yes; our childhood's home is that, I suppose, be it a cottage or a
castle, revisited in imagination at life's close," sighed the old lady.

"And that was your--your womanhood's home--as well," replied Sybil,
hesitating a little to find a suitable word.

"Yes, dear; there I had all my joys and sorrows."

"And now?" whispered Inna, who was kneeling by her side, stroking one of
her soft wrinkled hands.

"It is life's sweet after-glow with me; peace after pain and sorrow,
like the light in the sky after sunset."

"Oh, grand-auntie, how beautiful that must be to you if it is at all
like that!" cried Sybil, pointing at a distant window. Outside lay the
park, the copse, and surrounding landscape, all aglow with the changeful
tints which follow a fair sun-setting.

"Yes, dear; and life's after-glow is even more beautiful than that; for
instead of being the blending of day and night together, it is the
blending of day with day."

"Day with day?" lisped thoughtful Olive.

"Yes; life's beautiful days here with life's long beautiful day
hereafter," returned Madame Giche, her eyes glistening with her own
sweet thoughts. "But come, dears, the present time is the day with which
you have to do, with all its hopes and opportunities. I want you young
larks to sing me the quartette we were talking of the other day. Where
is Miss Gordon?"

"I am here, Madame Giche," came from a distant window. "Do you require
my services?"

"Do you play the accompaniment, and let me fancy myself--where shall I
say, Sybil?"

"Sailing down the river in the park by moonlight, the same as we and
Miss Gordon did last summer," was the ready answer.

Madame Giche laughed.

"But that would be too romantic. Fancy what it would be to come back
from such fairyland doings to find myself an old woman, sitting on her
hearth, with four magpies chattering around her, asking her to make
herself ridiculous."

"I don't think you could be that," said flattering Jenny.

Then the four swept away to the piano, like a breath of a sweet spring
breeze, where Miss Gordon played, and the quartette was rendered fairly
well, Madame Giche sitting, a listening shadow, on the hearth.

"Thank you, dears," said she, when it came to an end, and a servant
announced, "Mary from the farm is come for the two young ladies,
Madame."

"Was it anything like sailing down the river?" asked Sybil, as they all
clustered round her.

"It was very sweet and beautiful," said the old lady kindly; then she
kissed her two guests "good night," and said, "No; not so late," to her
two nieces, when they pleaded to accompany them as far as the
five-barred gate.

Jenny was really a guest at the farm for a few days, sleeping with Inna,
but spending most of her time at the Owl's Nest.

It was just what Inna needed, with her pale cheeks and troubled heart.

"If I only knew _where_ Oscar was, I think I could bear it better," was
her cry. But Dr. Willett had to bear his ifs and regrets in silence, as
best he could, without change or comfort from anything or anybody, save
the going out among his patients. His fine face grew very grave and
sorrowful, his hair was whitening too, as the days glided on into weeks,
and no tidings came of the missing boy.

Down the quiet shadowy drive from the Owl's Nest went the two little
girls and their attendant. Inna little knew to what she was going,
tripping along and talking to Jenny. Clear of the drive, their path home
lay in the moonlight, and not far had they gone when a little wailing
mew came to them from behind a hedge, and then a small white and black
kitten emerged therefrom, and came and rubbed herself round Inna's feet.
She caught it up and fondled it, the knowing little pleader mewing such
a pleased mew then, that you may be sure it went straight to the little
girl's heart.

"Oh, if I might keep it as my very own!" she cried; "but I'm afraid that
Smut wouldn't like it."

"I'm afraid Mrs. Grant wouldn't like it," said Mary, as a stronger
objection.

"Take the kitten home and ask her," advised Jenny; "and if she says
'No,' you could but ask your uncle, and if he says 'Yes,' she wouldn't
dare to say 'No.'"

"I don't think she would wish to say 'No' to anything that she thought
would make uncle or me happy," mused Inna aloud, and in this happy
confidence she hugged the foundling to her, and went on her way through
the moonlight, just as if she was not going home to the unlooked-for,
that which would stir her poor little heart to its centre.

How would she bear it?




CHAPTER IX.

OSCAR'S RETURN--THE MYSTERY CLEARED--ON THE TOR AGAIN.


How did Inna bear it?

As she bounded into the fire-lit kitchen, to prefer her request to Mrs.
Grant about her kitten, there sat Oscar by the fire, in his own especial
chair, just as if he had sat there nightly for the last six weeks: save
for this, that he had an ugly scar on his forehead scarcely healed, that
his face was thin and wan, and that he wore somebody's clothes, not his
own--those in which he had vanished.

"Oscar!" she cried, and sat down and wept over her joy as if it were a
sorrow, like a very excited little maiden--that is how she bore her
surprise. Mary knew nothing of his arrival; he had come after she had
left to bring the little girls home. The poor kitten went flying
somewhere, anywhere to be out of the way of such sobs and tears.

"Master--Dr. Willett," called the housekeeper from out of the open
kitchen door, wondering what effect the sight of Oscar would have upon
the two doctors, who had to bear the sight of so much.

"Yes--what is it?" came wandering back up the passage. The speaker
followed close behind, Mr. Barlow behind him. Oscar come back, Inna
crying over it. Well, with the coming of the two doctors she soon dried
her eyes and inquired for her kitten.

"Kitten, dear?" Mrs. Grant thought there was something a little wrong
with her head still, just a cobweb not cleared away, because of her
crying so, you know. Not so the doctor, for there came a piteous
prolonged mew, and up scrambled the kitten, inside one of the legs of
the doctor's trousers. She had missed her way, you see, but had chosen a
friend next best to Inna.

"Well, you're no beauty," quoth the doctor, drawing her down from her
hiding-place, and holding her on his arm to stroke her; "and you're
nothing to cry over, lost or found."

Dr. Willett put her into Inna's arms, where the little thing nestled,
as if she knew her rightful place already.

"I didn't cry over the kitten, uncle; I cried over Oscar," said the
little girl.

Mr. Barlow had drawn Oscar from the room and himself stayed with him, to
keep him there.

"Where is Oscar?--it isn't a dream, is it?" and Inna's eyes swept the
room.

"Dream? no, my dear; he was here just now. Isn't it his rightful place?"
spoke the doctor drily.

"Yes, only--only----"

"Ah! yes, only you want to know where he has been, what he has been
doing, and what right he had to come back in this matter-of-fact way,
when you had been imagining all sorts of unlikely things about him; and
so you cried over it, to give the whole thing the girl-like touch it
lacked. Ha--ha!"

This was Mr. Barlow's speech, putting his head in at the kitchen door,
to see how they were getting on.

"Yes, come in, both of you," said the doctor, that sorrowful gravity
lifted from his face already.

"Well, my boy, you have taken a heavy weight from my heart and added
years to my life by coming back," was what he said, drawing the lad to
him, and laying his hand on his shoulder.

"Have you missed me so much, uncle?" asked Oscar.

"Missed!" A look passed over Dr. Willett's face, which Inna, watching,
thought very like that on her father's face when he kissed her
"Good-bye," before she came down to the farm.

"Missed you, Master Oscar! yes, we're all missed, even when 'tis a boy
we're keeping the farm for," was Mrs. Grant's unlooked-for remark.

"Very silly of Mrs. Grant, to bring up that question of the farm on the
first night of the boy's return," observed the doctor, when he and his
friend were sipping their coffee together, the young folk gone to bed,
the budget of Oscar's adventures to be opened on the morrow.

"You see, dear," said that lady to Inna, after Jenny was asleep; and
Inna's eyes were sadly wakeful. "You see, dear, I wanted Master Oscar to
see, while his heart was tender, on this first night, that as he had
been missed and wanted by his uncle, it ought to be 'give and take' with
him, when I spoke about the farm."

"Give and take?"

"Yes, Miss Inna, give and take; it's that as smooths life's rough
places. Master Oscar has nothing to give his uncle for all he's doing
for him, but his will--letting go that foolish nonsense about the sea.
He ought to give up the sea and take to the farm--that would be his
giving and taking; and his uncle would give him the farm, and take
his--his obedience to his wishes, as a sort of harvest of love after all
the years of sowing."

"Sowing?" said Inna.

"Yes, the doctor has sown a deal of trouble, thought, and anxiety over
this young brother of his, at last lost at sea--that's Oscar's father,
you know. I think, in his quiet way, he's set his heart on the boy
making him some return, in the way of love and gratitude; and besides,
he says, putting him into the farm is the best thing he can do for him,
leaving out the love, obedience, and gratitude, and----" But Inna was
asleep.

Well, the next evening's tea-drinking, over which Inna presided, was a
sort of state tea-drinking at which Dr. Willett sat down, a thing he had
scarcely ever been known to do before. But then, Oscar was to tell his
adventures during tea; a poor, thin, hollow-eyed narrator was he, who
had been down well-nigh to death's door.

The tea-table was gay with spring flowers, and through the open window
came a chorus of sweet sounds, the bleating of lambs from the meadows,
the lowing of the cows being driven home to their milking, the song of
birds, the hum of insects--bees and gnats--the one toiling, the others
dancing in idleness: types and shadows of the human race, as Mr. Barlow
remarked. To which Jenny added, "Yes; and of boys and girls--the girls
working, the boys idle."

But to this there was no time to make reply, for Inna had supplied them
all with tea, and Oscar had cleared his throat like a story-teller in a
book, and was waiting to begin.

"Well, you know when I started, and you shouted, and I shouted back,"
said he.

"Yes, we know--hurry up!" spoke Jenny, like an unmannerly boy.

"I went on first-rate for a time, then I came to a full stop, for I was
at the Ugly Leap; and before I knew it I was over."

"Not much of a full stop; I should say a note of exclamation was dashed
in there," remarked Mr. Barlow.

"I don't think I uttered a sound; I think I was too horrified--that is
as girlish, I know, as if I'd screamed!"

"Oh! Oscar, you did scream: 'twas that which told us something was
wrong," put in the interrupting damsel Jenny.

"And no wonder. I'm not sure I shouldn't have screamed myself; and boys
are but mortal, the same as doctors," remarked Mr. Barlow.

"But not nearly so wise," interrupted Jenny again.

"Nor yet so talkative as young ladies; and if present company will
excuse me, I should like some of them to be quiet," said Oscar.

"Well, my boy, after the scream----" prompted Mr. Barlow.

"Well, if I _did_ scream, after that there was a silence and the full
stop, for I fell to the bottom; and when I came to my senses I was
jolting along in a caravan--such jolting, and I full of pain and
dizziness. That was a ride to town, and no mistake--Bulverton, the town
was called, where they took me to a hospital."

"Who?" inquired irrepressible Jenny.

"The gipsies--I was in a gipsy caravan; they were passing the road at
the bottom of the Leap, hurrying away from justice of some sort, I
should say, and, hearing me moan, were humane enough to pick me up out
of my snowy bed, and carry me along with them. By the time they reached
Bulverton I was unconscious, in a high fever, and I don't know what.
They made it all right with the hospital people, somehow, that they had
no hand in bringing me to the state I was in. I was terribly knocked
about--a blow on my head, besides this on my forehead, a broken arm, and
a good shaking generally. 'Twas a wonder I escaped with my life, the
doctors told me, when I came out of my bad turn--you know the dodge, Mr.
Barlow; you all make a miracle of what you do for sick people." Mr.
Barlow shook his fist at him.

"I kept who I was a secret, though, and wouldn't tell my name. I didn't
want to make a fuss here, you know, but on the last morning it all came
out. One of the doctors saw your description of me, uncle, and the
police came ferreting me out as well, I believe; and so I'd nothing to
do but throw off my disguise, and come home like a bad penny. I daresay
you'll have a bill, uncle, for sticking-plaster and so on."

"Which I shall be happy to pay, Oscar," said the grave doctor.

This was Oscar's story. Well, the bill came from the Bulverton hospital,
and was duly settled by Dr. Willett, and all things fell into their
usual train, save that Oscar, being unfit for study, and Dick away at
school, had rather a dull time of it.

The weather was glorious, and of course he roamed about, and went some
excursions with Inna, Jenny, and the donkey and cart, the twins from the
Owl's Nest sometimes swelling the number; but an outing with a pack of
girls, as he said, was but a very tame affair, and often he sighed for
midsummer and Dick.

Both came at last, as all good things are said to do to the waiting
ones, and the meeting on the Lakely platform was almost overwhelming as
Dick sprang out among them all; Oscar and the four girls clustering
round him like bees, while Rameses, with the cart at a respectful
distance, stretched out his neck, and brayed such a note of welcome,
that the attendant porter laughed till he held his sides. With Dick's
coming, the state of affairs looked up--here, there, and everywhere went
the two boys, not always with a string of girls after them, as Dick
slightingly expressed it.

Once, according to their own words, they took revenge upon the old Tor,
and had picnics upon its wind-swept heights in a body; but where the
revenge lay they themselves best knew. But the girls looked down the
Ugly Leap with awe, Oscar, with his scarred forehead, looking down with
the rest. A wonderfully clear view they had of the sea and the Swallow's
Cliff.

"I say," cried Dick, the happy thought striking him as he gazed,
"couldn't we take the girls over as far as the cliffs and the sea?
They've never been there, you know, Willett, and 'twouldn't be too far,
if we took old Rameses and the cart."

"Just a nice little outing," agreed Oscar; and down they all sat in
council to sketch out the programme, to use their own words.




CHAPTER X.

THE EXPEDITION TO SWALLOW'S CLIFF--CAUGHT BY THE TIDE.


"How far is it?" was Inna's leading question.

"Three miles as the crow flies," returned Dick.

"It would be delightful," smiled she.

"It would be jolly," said Jenny, using a word of Dick's.

"And I hope grand-auntie will let us go," sighed Sybil.

"Oh, she'll be sure to if I stand surety for your safety, like a good
old grandfather," Dick assured them. "And, I say, it ought to be
to-morrow, Willett," he suggested.

"Short notice."

"Yes; but it can be done. I'll see Madame Giche on our way home."

So when the gold was intermingling with the grey under the park trees,
and it was hard upon sundown, the whole party went bounding up the
avenue at the Owl's Nest, the rooks over their heads cawing a noisy
"good night" to them and the world in general. They found Madame Giche
pacing to and fro on the terrace with the peacocks.

At first the aged lady was hard to manage: if her nieces were of the
party, they must take Rance, their nurse, she said; but, as Dick assured
her, there was no need.

"They'll be as safe as safe, dear Madame Giche," were his words, spoken
with the persuasive grace of a courtier, smiling his boyish smile into
her face. "With two such safeguards as Willett and me, they can't come
to any harm--in fact, there's nothing they can come to harm in--'tis a
safe shore, even if they took into their heads to bathe, which none of
the young ladies will, I daresay."

"No, grand-auntie; we don't want to bathe or do anything dangerous,"
pleaded Sybil.

"And we don't want to be babies, and take our nurse," objected Olive.

"Well, dears, you shall have your way," promised over-persuaded
grand-auntie; and so "the midges," to use Dick's words, "won the day."
Oh, the joy of waking with a whole long summer's day of pleasure in
store! An excursion to the beautiful sea--she had scarcely seen it in
her short life.

Inna was up, and dressed and looking out of her chamber window, when
Oscar came into the paddock below to attend to some lambs.

"Hurry up, old lady! 'tis a glorious morning," cried he, looking up and
catching sight of her at the window.

She waved her hand and was gone. She had to fill the vases with flowers;
one she always placed in her uncle's study. Since Christmas Eve, when
she carried in her holly spray, she always contrived some sort of a
nosegay for him.

It was pleasant to hear her tripping feet, and her young voice singing
little snatches of ditties, through the house; to see her stand and feed
the chickens in the morning sunshine. A willing little handmaid was she
anywhere, and to anybody who needed her.

"I know she begins to save me a deal," Mrs. Grant said of her.

"Well, Sunbeam, what do I read in your eyes this morning?" said Mr.
Barlow, meeting her in the passage.

"An excursion to the sea--to Swallow's Cliff."

"'Tis well to be a young lady of leisure. Are you going to foot it?"

"No; we're going in Dick Gregory's donkey-cart."

"Ah! and 'tis well to be young to bear such jolting." He passed on.

The two young people waited for the doctor at the breakfast-table, but
Mr. Barlow did not keep him long; then passed the usually silent meal to
its close, but not before Dick peeped in at the rose-wreathed window,
and intimated by sundry nods that Jenny and the donkey and cart were
waiting outside in the lane. Away went the busy doctor into the passage,
just as Inna was saying--

"Oscar, you haven't told uncle--you ought, you know."

So Oscar, in the spirit of obedience for once, followed him.

"Uncle, may I and Inna go with Dick Gregory and his sister to Swallow's
Cliff to-day?" he asked.

"Swallow's Cliff--that's rather a long walk for a young lady."

"Only three miles, sir, as the crow flies," put in Dick, appearing from
somewhere.

"Yes; but as you're not crows, and can't fly, into the bargain, 'twould
mean more than that to you--or rather, 'tis Inna I'm thinking of," still
objected the doctor.

"You forget the donkey-cart, Dr. Willett; the young ladies will
ride--all of them," observed Dick.

"All?" the doctor stood ready to start.

"Yes, sir; there are four of them: the mid----, Madame Giche's nieces,
Miss Inna, and my sister Jenny."

"Well, I suppose I mustn't be a bear, and say no." Dr. Willett wheeled
round upon Oscar. "Yes, I've no objection; only take good care of the
little girls. A pleasant day to you." The busy physician was gone.

Now a tempest of preparation swept through the house for a few minutes;
then Mrs. Grant stood on the steps at the front door to watch them off.
Dick touched up old Rameses, and drove along the lane with a flourish.
Picking up the midges at the Owl's Nest gates, with many injunctions
from Rance to take good care of her charges, they made the best of their
way onward, not exactly as the crow flies, but taking all the short
cuts adventurous wheels could roll over: the more jolts and bumps the
more the merriment; Jenny driving, the boys on foot. So, without hitch
or hindrance, the sea was reached.

A glorious sight it was: not smooth, calm, and still, but with a
beautiful ripple breaking over it, with glad little waves running here
and there--just the mood to please the children. They all kept to the
boundary-line of shore; there was to be no boating, no bathing: the boys
had bound themselves by promise to Mrs. Grant that there were to be no
seaside pranks or dangerous doings.

"No; no one shall come to a watery grave or an untimely end, if I can
help it--I promise that:" these were Dick's last words to the
housekeeper, giving Rameses the touch which set him off with a bolt. So
now he bade the little girls to pick up shells, look out for mermaids,
and disport themselves in harmless lady-like fashion, while he and Oscar
went here and there, scaled heights, and took a glance seaward from the
height of the Swallow's Cliff.

"But first we'll consult the luncheon hamper," suggested he: which they
did; and a very neat spread it was which the girls laid out for them on
the unfrequented beach. This over, with a lifting of the hat, and
"Good-bye for the present," from Dick, and "Mind, Inna, the midges don't
get into mischief," from Oscar, the two went straying away; and the
girls, having cleared away luncheon, began to enjoy themselves. Such
pretty shells they picked, such beautiful sprays of seaweed, and, oh,
how the waves curled and ran races together! Once and again they saw a
distant ship sail past, and Inna thought of the happy days when her
father and mother would come sailing home in a ship like that. Then they
all ran races and sat in the sun, while Jenny sang one of Dick's songs,
with the refrain--

   "Three cheers for the briny-ho!"

and Inna sang one of Mrs. Grant's, with this chorus--

   "Ho-ho! for the fisherman's child to-night,
      Ho-ho! for the fisherman's wife;
    Ho-ho! for the fisherman's bark to-night,
      Ho-ho! for the fisherman's life."

By-and-by the boys came back to consult the hamper again--nothing like
the sea to make people hungry, and nothing like the sea to steal away
the time. So down they sat to the delights of pork-pie, sandwiches,
tarts, and the like; and, at last, all had vanished, save a little
lemonade, reserved for fear they should be thirsty at starting. As for
Rameses, he munched his hay and drank his one jar of water, poured into
a bucket which Dick had hung on under the cart.

"The old chap won't be able to drink of the briny," he had said in the
morning, drawing attention to his forethought for the animal's comfort.

"Now, just a whisk round, and we shall have to be moving homeward," said
Dick, consulting his watch as they sat together. "I promised Madame
Giche not to be after sunset, and we're keeping company hours with a
vengeance with our late dinner. Why, 'tis between six and seven
o'clock!"

"There'll be a moon," remarked Oscar.

"Yes; but that's not a sun," returned Dick, with a laugh. Then they all
laughed--they were so happy, so light-hearted and gay.

"Now, you girls, make the most of the next half-hour or so, and then
'twill be, 'Britons, strike home!'"

So Dick admonished them; and then he and Oscar went strolling away for
their last bout, as they called it.

Who does not know how swiftly the last half-hour of a very enjoyable
time whirls away? The four girls sat down in the glory of it all to sort
their shells, arrange their seaweed, and just rest and, as it were,
digest the day's pleasure.

"And there has been no coming to grief, and no anything," remarked
Sybil: a speech which doubtless would have shocked Madame Giche, had she
heard it.

No, so they thought--still, they must have been blind not to see that
foe of foes, which will not be repulsed nor stayed, stealing up and up,
and hemming them in. They must have been blind, as Dick said, shouting
out to them from above their heads.

What had happened? The tide--a high one to-night--had shut them in; the
waters were already beat-beating against a jutting rock, which made a
bend in the shore on their one side; on their other the sea lay a wide
waste of water; there was no retreating or fleeing, for the tide had
shut them in.

Up the rocks they must go, or----the boys held their breath at this
point, talking together above, where the sunlight still glinted about
them, though the grey evening shadows were upon the little band of
terrified maidens, wringing their hands, pale-faced and with startled
eyes, looking this way and that, and seeing no way of escape.

"Oh, Dick! what can we do? You surely know some way to get us away?"
cried Jenny.

But Dick shook his head.

"There is but one way: and that is, you must come up the rocks, and in
pretty quick time too--see that!" A defiant wave broke not far from
them, and dashed its spray over them. "As for old Rameses, he's safe
round the corner, where you ought to be; but if we were to go down and
try to wade in to you on his back, he'd never do it. He's game for
anything a donkey can do, but not for that." So that forlorn hope had to
be given up.

"They must come up here: that's their only chance," said Oscar.

"But how?" was Dick's answer.

"I must try to go down and fetch them up," was the other's reply, with
paling cheeks but resolute eyes.

"Yes," said Dick, peering down; "and if we could land them on that ledge
of rock down there, 'twould be something; the tide may not reach
that--at least, not yet." There was a friendly ledge of rock, not so far
above where the girls stood. "But why should you go down? Let me,"
volunteered ready Dick.

"No," objected Oscar; "let me go. I ought to be game for that." And he
laughed.

"Well, yes, half sailor and all, you ought to know best." How lightly
those boys could speak, though their hearts were throbbing quickly with
the thought of what might happen. "If I had a rope, I'd let you down;
then if you'd land them on the ledge, I'd run for help, for we should
never tug them up here by ourselves."

"No," mused Oscar. "And there is a rope in the donkey-cart--a strongish
one, I think."

Away went Dick as with winged feet, while the other stood crowned with
red sunbeams, and viewed their position. Back came Dick.

"'Twould never bear my weight," observed Oscar, tossing off his jacket
and tightening his belt for action.

"No, but it would steady you, if you'll scramble down; or let me go
down, and you hold the rope--I'm your man for either."

"No, no, I must go down. See there, I can't resist that," whispered
Oscar, pointing below. It was poor little Inna's pale pleading face
upturned to him in silence.

The boys had been talking and doing; the rope was fast round Oscar's
waist: a strong-looking rope, but weak, when one considered that it was
in a sense to hold a life in its keeping.

"Oh, Dick!" cried Jenny from below, "the water is dashing up to our
feet!"

Yes, the boys could see it was so--the twins were clinging together, and
Inna stood with her arms thrown about them both.

"I'm coming!" cried Oscar reassuringly, and stepped over.

"Steady, old man, and the thing is done," whispered Dick, gripping the
rope with his strong young hands.

[Illustration: "IT SNAPPED AND HE WAS GONE."]

It was an heroic feat, yet no more than bold venturesome lads of their
age have done before and since. There were ledges here and there for
strongly planted feet to rest upon, and to which young grasping hands
could cling, although steep as the walls of a house. A giddy descent,
but one to be accomplished with a steady head--that of a half sailor, to
use Dick's words. The girls below were silent; even Jenny held her
breath, although the water now was washing all their feet. Dick held the
rope and his breath also.

But not far had the deliverer gone down his adventurous way when he
stumbled, reeled, his hands forgot to cling, and poor panic-stricken
Dick, who was clinging to that broken reed of a rope, knew it could not
sustain the strain of Oscar's weight; it snapped, and he was gone,
falling down, to be caught by that very ledge of rock upon which he was
to land the girls. He would never do it now; he moaned as he fell, then
he lay, face downward, terribly motionless and still. And the girls were
not rescued.

"Oh, Dick! the water is lifting us off our feet," wailed Jenny.

"Do you think he's dead?" cried Inna, still holding the affrighted twins
in her embrace.

"Jenny, you know how to climb almost like a boy; help Inna to land on
the ledge: there's room," cried Dick in desperation, peering down in awe
at Oscar, lying so still on his narrow resting-place. "Then between you
tug up the twins, and I'll go down to the shore yonder and get help and
a rope, and come down to you."

Thus instructed and admonished, Jenny took heart, and, thanks to the
knowledge of climbing trees which Dick had taught her, she scrambled up
with Inna, and planted her safe by her cousin's side. Then down she slid
again, brave little maiden, like a very boy, and tugged and twisted up
the midges, as they sobbed in their forsaken terror, Inna reaching down
and lending a helping hand.

They were safe at last, for the time being, from the clutching water,
rising and still rising below them; then Dick sped away. But what of
Oscar: was he dead? and what if help should not reach them in time, and
the tide should overwhelm them, after all?




CHAPTER XI.

THE RESCUE--CLOUDY DAYS--GOOD NEWS AT LAST.


Like the wind sped Dick--it must be now or never. The fear was upon him
that _high_ tides, at any rate, did reach the ledge of safety where the
girls were sheltering. He fancied he had seen water-marks above that.
Then about Oscar: that was a terrible height to fall. What if he was
dead? what if he should revive, and, not being sensible, fall off the
shelf of rock?--the girls could not hold him back. He must have struck
his head fearfully. "I thought, having such a craze for being a sailor,
he would have had a steadier head and more of sea-legs. I wish _I_'d
gone down, and he held the rope." Such thoughts came crowding into the
boy's head as he scudded along.

Away to the right were the fishing-boats coming in, their sails dashed
with gold and crimson, but not a craft of any kind lay to the left,
where lives, so to speak, were being weighed in the balance. At last
Dick was among the fisher-folk, telling his story, and a band of the
hardy fellows put off in a boat for the scene of peril, a party mounting
over the cliffs with a strong rope, Dick foremost of all.

"Let me go down: they are more to me than to you," he pleaded, when they
were on the cliffs, above where the little party crouched on their
narrow strip of ledge. "I ought to have gone down instead of Willett;
let me go down now."

But the fishermen set him aside.

"No, sir, not while we men can go down better"; and one, a giant in
height, strength, and kindliness of heart, tied the rope about himself,
and, as poor unfortunate Oscar had done, stepped over to the rescue.

"Will the rope bear him?" asked Dick, thinking of the other's failure.

"Yes, sir, bear a house; never you fear!" replied he who took charge of
the rope.

The sun had set, the sea looked grey and frowning, the wind sighed and
moaned among the rocks. Oscar lay perfectly still and motionless; the
girls had turned him over, and Inna sat with his head on her lap, his
face covered with her handkerchief--it was so terrible to look upon:
that was all the change since Dick had left. Jenny sat holding a hand of
each of the twins.

"For Dick's sake; because he promised for them to Madame Giche," she
kept whispering to herself, trying not to shudder when the spray from
the rising waters dashed over them. Dick was right; the tide would wash
the ledge presently, it was doing its best to reach it now.

How boldly the fisherman made the descent! It was as nothing to him,
Dick thought, peering over. He was standing among the little prisoners.

"These first, please," said Jenny, nodding at her two charges, "because
they were given into our care, and they are the youngest."

"All right, missie," returned the man, and, taking one of them under his
arm, went mounting up like a big fly or a spider.

Hurrah! one was safe, and back he went again. His comrades, with their
boat, were standing off at no great distance, on the grey shadowy
sea--the whole scene Dick never forgot.

"How is it with Master Willett down there?" he asked of the man, as he
landed with the first little girl.

While down there he had bent over the lad a moment, and had examined
him, so was able to report.

"Well, sir, he's senseless, and his face terribly battered, but he's
alive."

He brought up the other little girl and Jenny, but as for Inna and
Oscar--

"Better signal to our chaps out yonder to run in with the boat; 'twill
be easier for the young gentleman to get him off that way," shouted the
man to Dick, watching from above, and made signs to his comrades to row
in with the boat.

While this was being done Dick hurried away with Jenny and the twins to
put Rameses into the cart, if the poor brute was to be found, and drive
home without delay.

"Yes, sir, quick home is the word for them, for they're wet, and cold,
and frightened, poor dears!" said one of the men, who had children of
his own.

So they left Oscar and Inna to the boatmen's kindly care, and hurried
away to look for Rameses. The dear old creature hailed them with such a
prolonged braying, standing beside the cart, as if he knew they ought to
be going. Dick put him in and drove home briskly, dropping the twins at
the Owl's Nest, where no ill tidings had as yet found its way. But they
met Dr. Willett and Mr. Barlow well on the road, with the gig and some
sort of stretcher-bed, hastily made, for someone had handed on the news
to the farm; therefore Dick was thankful to meet the two doctors, as he
could direct them to the spot where the boat was likely to land.

Poor, poor Oscar! he moaned sadly when the boatmen moved him; he was
alive to pain, if to naught besides.

"Softly! softly!" so they whispered, handling him as if he had been a
baby; but Inna's heart ached, hearing him groan and moan, as she stepped
into the boat, and nestled beside him, and more, taking his head in her
lap; and so they moved off over the darkening seas.

Oscar had fallen into silent insensibility again when they landed. Then
followed another moaning time of pain; they laid him on the
stretcher-bed, and put him and it into the gig, as the doctor had
arranged beforehand. Inna crept in beside him, the doctor after that,
with his legs tucked up as best he could; then away they drove, as
briskly as the state of the poor sufferer allowed, leaving Mr. Barlow to
come after on foot. Mr. Gregory was at the farm when they arrived there;
heavy tidings had been reported to him--whether it was Dick or Oscar
killed, report did not know, but it fancied it was both; and two, if not
more, of the little girls were drowned--that was the story report had
told about the little party.

The first thing to be done was to hurry Dick and Jenny off to bed, and
to put Oscar into his. Such a getting upstairs of sighs and moans was
it, and of aching hearts, suffering over it all. Inna broke down at
last, and sobbed as if her heart would break, when there was nothing
more for her to bear or do, and Mary took charge of her, to see her to
bed, Mrs. Grant and the doctors taking Oscar into their keeping. Well,
there was no use in mincing matters--the boy's face was much beaten and
battered by the fall; it would show the scars for some time to
come--perhaps for ever: concussion of the brain, a fractured leg; even
Mrs. Grant's heart grew sick, hearing the doctors enumerate the evils
that had befallen him.

"Yes, he'll live--at least, I don't see why he shouldn't," said his
uncle. "Yes, God willing, he'll live;" but he went out to his patients
the next morning with an anxious brow.

A terrible awakening came to Oscar, after that long death-like
stillness; weary days of restless insensibility and pain followed. Poor
suffering boy, it was hard to hear him moan and rave over the fancied
peril of the girls.

"Inna, Inna!" he would cry. "I believe she cared for me more than
anybody else in the world, and now I'm leaving her to die. I would save
her if I could," and he would try to spring out of his bed--only try,
poor maimed lad; but these fits of restless insensibility wasted his
strength sadly.

In vain Mrs. Grant tried to soothe him; sometimes his uncle sent to the
Owl's Nest for Inna, exiled there against her will, because being in the
house, hearing his moans and wild cries, made her pale and ill,
following close upon the strain to her childish nerves before.

The doctor's heart misgave him terribly at this time. Would his dear
dead brother's son die--slip, as it were, away from him, his father's
brother, who had taken the friendless lad to his heart, in the place of
the younger brother he had well-nigh idolised? Only in his quiet,
reserved, absent-minded way he had never thought how much he cared for
him. He sent for his small niece--the child who had stolen into all
their hearts with her gentle, unobtrusive love, and would stand aside
from the bed when she came with a heavy sigh, while she spoke the boy's
name. She had more power to soothe him than he; she laid her small cool
hand on Oscar's feverish one, holding it till he seemed to understand
who it was near him. Then he would sink into long, unrefreshing, heavy
slumber, to awake to all the wild frenzy again. Thus, to and fro went
the little maiden from the farm to the Owl's Nest and Madame Giche, who
chatted to and tried to amuse her when there, and to beguile her from
her childish anxiety.

"Yes, dear, my husband descended from a French family," she said one
evening, finding her in the picture-gallery, where she so loved to be,
as usual passing from picture to picture, and always stopping at that of
Madame Giche's son, to think over the sad tale, and to wonder where that
little child was whom Madame Giche had never found. "Yes, dear, he was
of French family. Some said my son was like him, but I think he was more
like me;" and the aged lady regarded his portrait fondly, standing
behind her little guest.

"I think he's very much like you, dear Madame Giche; and, do you know,
he always reminds me of mamma; 'tis the eyes, I think--they look at me
so!" There came a quiver into the child's voice.

"Were mamma's eyes dark?" questioned Madame Giche.

"Oh, no! Mamma's eyes are like mine. People say I am very like mamma."

"And papa--what is he like?"

"He is dark, and--and that is all."

"An artist, is he not?"

"Yes; he was painting the portrait of the gentleman with whom he's gone
abroad when--when he was taken ill"--the child's sweet grey eyes filled
with tears. "He broke a blood-vessel, and--and 'twas said he would die
if he spent the winter in England."

"And so the gentleman took him abroad?"

"Yes; it was very kind of him. A Mr. Mortimer--his father was rich once,
only he lost his estate, so his son was poor, only he married a rich
lady; and they are so happy, and Mrs. Mortimer is so beautiful," went on
the child.

"Mortimer! Mortimer!"--the ancient lady shook her head. "No, I don't
know the name," she sighed, looking at her son's picture again.

"I wonder where the little boy is, Madame Giche?" said Inna, out of the
silence that followed, noting the aged mother's fond gaze.

"Little boy, dear?" was the dreamy response.

"Yes, Madame Giche, your dear little grandson."

"My dear, he's not a little boy--he's thirty-three years of age--that
is, if he's living."

"Oh, how strange! why, he is just as old as papa, and I keep fancying
him a little boy."

"No, dear, no," sighed Madame Giche. "And so papa is thirty-three?" she
asked.

"Yes, just the age of Mr. Mortimer; they kept their last birthday
together--you know--in Italy," was the quivering response. She could not
speak of her absent ones so calmly as her aged friend.

"But papa is better, is he not, my dear?" questioned Madame Giche
cheerfully, noting the tremor in her voice.

"Oh, yes! and seeing and doing so much, he is almost well--and--and
having his heart's desire, at last, in seeing Rome."

"Was he never there before?"

"No, not since he was a very little boy. But Mr. Mortimer was; he has
travelled a great deal; he married his wife abroad--in Switzerland, I
think."

"Ah, indeed!" and again Madame Giche sighed.

"Yes, I think--I think he was tutor to a young gentleman there. You
know, he does not mind my telling you; he often talks to people about
that time--he doesn't mind a bit," said the conscientious little girl.

Just then the twins brought Inna a letter from Italy, and from her
mamma. Madame Giche saw how the child's hand trembled at taking it, and
drew the two little girls away, to let her read it in peace.

This she did, sitting down on the topmost stair of the grand staircase,
among the coloured lights. It brought her good news--her father and
mother were to come home early next summer, and she had thought when
parted from them that they would not return for three years.

"Madame Giche," said she, after she had wiped away the happy tears which
would come, dancing into the tapestried room, almost like one of the
twins, "papa and mamma are coming home next summer."

"Indeed, dear: that won't be long to wait," returned the kindly old
lady; and Inna, remembering the long, long years of waiting she had
known, nestled to her side and kissed her.

Another joy came to Inna that same evening. Oscar was better, was
conscious at last; he had just awoke from a sweet refreshing sleep, and
cheered all their hearts at the farm, and his uncle had pronounced him
out of danger. Dick Gregory brought the news to the Owl's Nest. The
change for the better in his friend had come at the right time;
to-morrow he was to go back to school, he told Inna, as she strayed out
to him on the moonlit terrace.

[Illustration: "DICK SHOOK HER BY THE HAND."]

"And now, hurrah!" cried the happy boy, tossing up his cap, and making
Inna laugh a tinkling, happy laugh, such as she had not indulged in for
so many anxious days. Then Dick shook her by the hand as she told him of
her letter, with its good news, bade her cheer up, and promised to tell
Jenny, whom he pointed out to her away down the shadowy avenue, standing
by the donkey and cart--not to shock Madame Giche with the rumbling old
thing by bringing it nearer, he told her.




CHAPTER XII.

NEW THOUGHTS AND WAYS--THE HEIRESS OF WYVERN COURT.


Spring again, and Oscar and his uncle had been out round the farm. The
boy was somewhat spiritless and weary-looking; he could not be
pronounced to be ill or really weak now, yet there was something wanting
in him which ought to have been there, making him more atune to
spring-time.

His face was not much the worse for its battering on the rocks. He was
still a good-looking youth, as Mr. Barlow told him one day; to which
Inna responded, as the boy was silent, that she was glad, because nice
looks were nice. This made Oscar laugh at last, and remark that nice, as
used in the sense she used it, was only a girl's way of using it. Yet he
could be grumpy still, though there was certainly a change for the
better in him in that way.

As for Inna, she had been like a little shadow about him all through the
winter, sitting by him through the long, cold, snowy days in the
dining-room, he on a couch by the fire, she on a footstool, reading to
him, chatting, working out puzzles--she and he together--and heaping up
the fire till it blazed again. Once they had an earnest talk of that
which was always making Oscar's heart heavy and his brow gloomy, of the
time when he would have to take to the farming.

Thus Oscar was, in a way, prepared for what his uncle said to him after
their walk round the farm that fine spring day.

"Oscar, do you know why I've taken you round the farm to-day?"

The boy had thrown himself listlessly on a couch near the fire.

"Yes, I suppose to remind me of what I'm to be," returned he.

"Well, yes, you have guessed rightly; and, my boy, has it ever struck
you that you're not fitted for what you want to be?" asked Dr. Willett,
doctor-like, going to the point at once, and so saving suffering.

"Yes, I know I'm too big a coward for it; and I suppose other people
know it as well."

"No, not a coward, Oscar--events have proved that not to be correct. For
instance, no coward would have saved that child at the fire; yet they
told me you fainted as soon as 'twas done. The doctor at Bulverton
Hospital wrote me that he thought there was something peculiar in the
formation of your brain: what happened at Swallow's Cliff proves the
same thing, and confirms my opinion of you, formed years ago--that your
head would never do for climbing giddy heights, nor steer you through
dangers in safety to yourself or to others. So, my boy, your sailor
dream will have to be set aside."

"It was more than a dream, it was--it was----" the boy broke down and
sobbed, burying his face among the pillows of the couch.

There was silence for a while, and when Oscar looked up he saw a tear
trickling down his uncle's cheek, as he stood with his back to the fire.

"Uncle Jonathan, is that tear for me?" he asked, in wistful surprise.

"Yes, my boy; because I know what you are feeling. My life has been a
silent one--too silent perhaps--but there are things that I, too, have
missed in that same life. I doubt if there are many lives without the
miss and the loss."

Something prompted the boy to stretch out his hand toward his uncle, and
he took it with such a warm grasp.

"Uncle, I'll be a farmer; I've intended to tell you so for
days--only----"

"Well, never mind, we understand each other now; and let me say this
much, Oscar: the humdrum farm-life, as I've heard you call it behind my
back"--Dr. Willett smiled somewhat sadly--"won't be so humdrum as you
think, if you make of it a life work--a something to be handled nobly,
and made the most of. A tinker's life could be hardly humdrum with that
end in view."

   "If I were a tinker, no tinker beside
      Should mend an old kettle like me;
    Let who will be second, whatever betide,
      The first I'm determined to be,"

came jingling through the boy's brain, and made him smile.

"Yes, uncle, I see; thank you for speaking out." He raised his uncle's
hand to his lips and kissed it, as a girl might have done; the distance
between him and his uncle was bridged over at last for ever.

"You see, I never thought Uncle Jonathan cared for me before," he said
to Inna afterward.

And now Inna seemed to walk on air; going here and there about the farm
with Oscar, who was too weak for study still, but trying with all his
might to take an interest in what was going on out of doors.

"A good long voyage would cure him of his sea-fever, and quite set him
up for hard work," remarked Mr. Barlow to the doctor; and both wondered
if it could be managed.

       *       *       *        *       *

Well, in the midst of all this, home came Mr. and Mrs. Weston one fine
May day, like swallows, to make Inna's summer complete. They arrived
suddenly, as travellers often do, the letter that was sent to announce
them making its appearance the morning after they were at the farm--for
such things do happen now and then.

Now the days followed on indeed like a happy dream to Inna, she and her
mother comparing notes together, and joining the threads of their
divided lives again. Mr. Mortimer spirited her father off to London, for
they all came in a bunch to the farm; Mrs. Mortimer also accompanied the
gentlemen; but when the business which took them there was arranged,
they were to return to keep holiday with Mrs. Weston and Inna.

Meanwhile, the little girl introduced her mother to Madame Giche and her
nieces, and showed her, at her aged friend's request, the fine old
house, took her to the picture-gallery, to hear the story of Madame
Giche's son, who broke her heart; and if Mrs. Weston's very soul was
stirred within her, hearing the sad tale and looking at its poor dead
subject's face, nobody knew it--she kept it to herself. Then back came
the three from London, like happy children, to join the rest.

"With his house full of company, the doctor felt bound to come out of
his shell to entertain them," as Mr. Barlow remarked to Oscar.

But Dr. Willett was quite equal to playing host, and taking the lead in
all the clever talk going on at his table, between his old friend, who
slily looked amused--an artist, a gentleman with a rich wife, and a
beauty--and two ladies; the younger members hearing, and saying
nothing, but wondering at Uncle Jonathan's ease and eloquence. But there
came a break to this; Madame Giche would like Inna to bring her artist
father and his friend to the Owl's Nest, to be introduced to her, and to
see the pictures, some of which were supposed to be good.

So one day they all went, Inna feeling the importance of the part she
had to play, and hoping she should come out of it all gracefully. Ah!
she need not have disquieted herself. Sweetly gracious was Madame Giche,
wrapped about with a black lace shawl, sitting by the wood fire in the
tapestried room, and rising in her stately way when Inna led the
gentlemen in, holding a hand of each, and saying--

"Madame Giche, this is papa, and this is Mr. Mortimer."

Little dreamt she what would follow, nor they either. Inna fancied she
heard her aged friend murmur, like an echo, her last word, "Mortimer!"
as she glided from them, to stand by her side, then----

"Hugh!" they all heard that: 'twas like a musical wail of gladness; and
Madame Giche sank into her high-backed chair--like a snowflake was her
face for whiteness--and fainted.

"She is dead! Madame Giche is dead!" sobbed the little girl, but Long,
whom they hastily summoned, said--

"No, miss; 'tis only a faint," and asked if the gentlemen would carry
her to her chamber, so that she could be revived in quiet.

This Mr. Weston did, lingering with his little daughter and Mr. Mortimer
on the terrace outside, to hear tidings of the poor lady's state before
leaving. Here a servant came to them before many minutes had passed,
though the time seemed long to them in their perplexity. Madame Giche
was better, she said, but begged them to excuse her seeing them now, and
would they come by appointment to-morrow, at ten o'clock?

You may be sure Inna lived in a state of continual excitement and
curiosity, so mysterious was Madame Giche's fainting fit to her, for the
remainder of that day and until ten o'clock on the morrow; and when she
saw the two gentlemen set forth alone for the interview, she not being
needed now, she felt like a very inquisitive little girl, who did not
half like being left behind and so not to see and hear what might
happen next.

In the meantime, the two arrived at the Owl's Nest, and reached the
tapestried room, where Madame Giche, still like a snowflake for
paleness, and sweetly weak and trembling, received them, not rising from
her chair this time. Ah! well, it was no time for ceremony. Question
followed question from the poor old lady's lips as to who was Mr.
Weston's father, when born, his real name, and so forth, until the
artist sat down and told her his story--for he had one.

"My father was a gentleman, and died rather suddenly in Italy, when I
was three years old; my mother followed him three weeks after, of a
broken heart, 'twas said, and I was adopted by a friend of my father's,
an artist, named Welthorp, a great traveller, but kind and good, who
took me to Australia--in fact, almost all round the world--and finally
to London, where he and his wife died--both died while I was a mere lad.
But I had learnt to dabble and paint, and so, making the most of my
knowledge, have managed by degrees to struggle up to what I am."

This was his meagre story.

"My father? no, I never knew who he was, nor his name--not Weston; Mr.
Welthorp knew that much--but my father was a reserved man: he never
mentioned who he was, nor what his position or property, not even to
him. I've heard he sent a message to his mother when dying, but----"

The interruption came from Madame Giche, who suddenly clasped his hand,
crying, "That ring, where did you get it--say?"

"It was my father's ring, all he had to show of his former life, so to
speak;" and Mr. Weston took the ring from his finger like a man in a
dream--a costly gold ring, studded with diamonds.

"It is my dead husband's ring; I gave it to my son to wear in memory of
him when he attained his eighteenth birthday," cried Madame Giche. "See
here"--and her trembling fingers touched a spring--"here are their
initials, my boy's and his father's." Ah! yes, there they were, there
was no denying it.

Denying it! sweet-eyed, eager old lady, she led them to the gallery, and
made them look at that all-convincing portrait of her son, over which
unconscious Inna had dreamt so often, longing for her mother, she
scarcely knew why, while it was her father's face spoke to her mystified
little heart. Ah! it was as clear as the light of day before Mr. Weston
and Mr. Mortimer left the Owl's Nest that morning. Mr. Weston was the
rightful master of Wyvern Court, and Inna its heiress to come
after--Madame Giche's great-granddaughter.

       *       *       *        *       *

There was a right joyful Christmas keeping at Wyvern Court that year: it
was all joy, peace, and home-coming to Madame Giche; all a fairy dream
to Inna and the twins, to have Dick and Jenny as their guests, Dr.
Willett, Mr. Barlow, and Oscar coming up for the Twelfth Night.

"I say, who would have thought you'd prove to be the heiress of Wyvern
Court that day when I met you in the railway carriage?" said Dick
Gregory--he, Jenny, Inna, the twins, all out on the terrace, in the
moonlight, at the old court, listening to the bells on Christmas
evening.

"I didn't know it myself," returned Inna. "You see, papa's illness and
all was like the cloud with the silver lining."

"Your cloud was lined with gold, Miss Giche," remarked Dick, "and no
mistake!"

"It is _our_ cloud as well--mine and Olive's--isn't it, Inna dear?"
spoke Sybil, clinging to the new little heiress's hand. "We are to be
co-heiresses, all three, and grand-auntie knows how."

"Oh, ay! share and share, like dividing one apple between the three of
you; but Inna is _the_ heiress," said Dick.


THE END




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   +------------------------------------------------------------------+
   |                                                                  |
   | Transcriber's notes:                                             |
   |                                                                  |
   |    Obvious spelling/typographical and punctuation errors         |
   |    have been corrected after careful comparison with other       |
   |    occurrences within the text and consultation of external      |
   |    sources.                                                      |
   |                                                                  |
   |    Inconsistent hyphenations (school-boy/schoolboy, fire-light/  |
   |      firelight, bed-chamber/bedchamber) have been retained.      |
   |                                                                  |
   +------------------------------------------------------------------+